WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Space Is the Place 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:08.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.160 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:17.400 And this is Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.160 In today's episode, We're going to cover a unique film 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.040 that I've wanted to cover for a long time here 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:25.480 on the show. It's nineteen seventy four Space is the Place, 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.160 starring and built around the visionary, experimental jazz composer and 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:33.600 band leader Son Raw. There's nothing else out there quite 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.560 like it, just like there has never been anyone else 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.640 quite like Sun Raw. So I'm really looking forward to 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.520 discussing this one. Joe, had you seen the movie before? 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.000 No, I had never seen the movie before, And what 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:49.560 a treat. I loved it. I thought this was great. 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.120 It's totally unique. I've never seen a movie like this. 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.560 Yeah. Yeah, it is quite a treat. In its best moments, 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.279 I think Space is the Place delivers the kind of 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:03.400 avant garde surrealism that you would find in certainly nineteen 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:07.320 seventies cinema such as Jo Darowski's Holy Mountain, while also 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:13.720 channeling various works of contemporary and classic science fiction. Certainly 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.120 early scenes also bring to mind seventy two silent running, 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.440 you know, where we have these sort of artificial forests 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.560 or some sort of an alien landscape that we're visiting. 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:30.120 And of course all these examples speak to something about 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:32.840 the nineteen seventies and often something to do with dislocation 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.959 in the early nineteen seventies. Meanwhile, there are other elements 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.520 again of spaces the place that harken to B movie 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.280 science fiction in the fifties and sixties, and all of 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.319 this while providing a platform for sun Raw to express 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:51.960 his own particular philosophy on personal identity, creative liberation, mythology, 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:57.279 and above all, the spiritual power of music. Speaking of music, 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.440 it is worth noting that this is, in a very 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.639 limited way, a concert film, or more to the point, 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.240 it's a project that kind of started out as an 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.160 attempt to do some sort of a concert film too. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.600 I think the earliest idea was, let's get Sun Raw 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:17.280 and his orchestra inside a planetarium and they'll do a show. 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.919 There'll be lights, and we'll film it. That never came 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:25.239 to fruition, but that project idea ended up becoming Space 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.400 as the place. It ended up becoming a narrative film 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:36.920 that has sequences of actual solar orchestra performance, but also 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:42.200 has this narrative structure that in times also has elements 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.320 of say, black exploitation cinema of the seventies, but also 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.520 again keeps using these sci fi and surrealist elements as well. 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:53.320 So when this film is firing in all cylinders, it's 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.680 just absolutely mesmerizing, offering a sort of crystallization of some 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.359 of Sunraw's cosmic afro futurist ideas. 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:03.800 Yeah, there are a lot of parts of this movie 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:09.079 where soun Raw seems to I was gonna say, break character, 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.360 but I guess that's to the extent that he is 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.560 playing a character in the movie and is not just 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.440 speaking for himself. I do think there is some element 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.919 of performance, but also he is putting a lot of 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.960 his real self and his real thoughts into the movie 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.960 from what I can tell, But there is a lot 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:32.000 of Sunraw just speaking his ideas in some monologues that 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:36.160 occur within scenes or at least are intercut with scenes, 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.080 but feel almost just improvised. He's sort of like sharing 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.040 his thoughts or kind of commenting on the plot of 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:44.440 the movie, if that makes sense. 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.800 Yeah. Yeah, in the nature of these little monologues, they 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:52.480 feel again, they feel almost improved. Though. I'm to understand 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:57.000 Sonraw wrote all of his lines and actually, you know, 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:01.200 wrote them out before delivering them. But yeah, there's almost 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:05.800 kind of a documentarian feel to his presentation at times, 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.920 and then his whole character is bound up like in 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.880 this sense of, you know, a very wise figure, almost 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.960 kind of a Buddha like figure who is sharing wisdom 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.279 with you, but also laying out riddles and asking questions 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.440 of you and so forth in a very tantalizing way. 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:25.440 Yeah, totally. 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.640 Now, there have been multiple books written about sun Raw, 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.680 and several of these seem very well regarded. I was 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.279 reading through Space is the Place, The Lives and Times 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.080 of Sun Raw by jazz historian John Zwed, in addition 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.240 to DVD extras on Space Is the Place and a 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:47.960 nineteen eighty musical documentary piece titled Sun Raw A Joyful Noise, 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.240 which you can find in various places. I watched that 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.080 one an Eternal Family, but I think you can also 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:54.279 find it like on YouTube. 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:56.279 I didn't have time to watch the whole thing, but 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:58.400 you shared it with me. You shared the part where 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.120 Sunraw is warming and he's doing this thing on the 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.440 keyboard where he starts spinning around in circles and ultimentually 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.760 hitting the keyboard each time he revolves. Impressive. 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.640 Yeah, A Joyful Noise has some great sit downs bits 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.039 with Son Raw, and there's also bits where he's like 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.640 wandering around the ancient Egyptian segment of a museum, perhaps 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.520 in Philadelphia, I'm not sure where, you know, talking about 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:28.080 some of his concepts. But also some great performance footage, 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.880 including this scene where he's just tearing into the synthesizer. 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:39.800 Just passion on display there. But the book by Zwet 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.719 is quite good. He was born in thirty six. The 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.760 author actually saw Sun Raw in his orchestra play, and 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:48.919 as he points out in the book, like Raw. He 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.520 grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, later lived in Philadelphia like Raw. 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:55.640 So he was like, I was the ideal person to 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.279 write a book about him, while also acknowledging that this 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.640 was like the first biography that he wrote. Generally not 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:07.159 advisable to pick somebody who say denies having been born 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:12.720 or or is very cagey about various aspects of their 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:17.760 terrestrial biography. Yeah, but it's a great book, and I 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.320 wanted to share just a couple of excerpts from it. 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.040 Particularly there's a part where he's talking about what it 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.719 was like to go and see Sun Raw and his 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:31.400 band the Orchestra perform in the late sixties and early seventies, 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:35.400 you know, basically the time period around and just before 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.040 the release of this film. 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.840 And just as a bit of context by there was 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.960 sort of an arc of Sunraw's career where earlier on, say, 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.839 in the forties and fifties, he was a more conventional 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.159 jazz musician. Maybe not totally conventional, I think, always sort 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.320 of you know, more innovative, but he was playing in 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.120 more familiar styles like maybe swing or I read that 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.920 maybe some of his stuff is considered hard bop. 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.160 But yeah, hard bob b boban. I'm gonna have to admit, 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.720 as we discuss Son Raw and his music, I've never 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.160 been like a huge jazz person, so I'm going to 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.920 use some of the wrong terminology to describe jazz inevitably. 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.440 But yeah, he was, this is my understanding as well, 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.920 and more traditional, but then you know, really gets on 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.360 this space trip, you know, certainly by the late sixties, 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:27.040 early seventies. 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:28.440 Yeah, that's what I was going to say. So in 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:31.480 the sixties is when the stuff it starts getting very 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.200 strange and going in much more experimental, avant guard directions, 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:39.120 and by the seventies is incorporating just lots of weirdness. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.160 Is like famously weird at this point. 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:45.160 And yeah, so the biographer here writes that, yeah, going 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:49.200 to one of these concerts could be mystifying and even scary. 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.480 Quote the exotic, the down home, eccentric, hip, archaic and 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.600 even and the freaky could come at the audience in 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.800 overlapping waves. He writes that are performed might begin in 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.360 total darkness, and then the lights would come up on 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:08.600 acrobats and dancers while the band chanted marched around and 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:13.920 various costumes you know that might reference both ancient Egypt 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.800 and also a kind of space age future. You'd have 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:21.920 saxophone players engaging in battles, musical battles. And then quote 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.880 there was also the maestro himself and his cockpit slash 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:30.080 pullpit playing an electric keyboard, his fingers sliding upside down 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.080 on the keys, sometimes with his butt. All of this 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.760 enacted in front of a silent movie of the band 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.959 capering among the pyramids of Egypt. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.400 That sounds pretty amazing. I wish I could have seen that. 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:44.200 Yeah, And to be clear, I'll come back to this 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.560 as well. But even though soun Raw has been gone 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.080 from the mortal realm for quite a while, the orchestra 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.520 is still around and still tours, so it is possible 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.440 for folks out there to catch them. More on that 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.199 in a bit, but any rate, so this was the 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.760 basic vibe of the show, and some music fans, critics, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.040 and commentators loved all of this. Others distrusted it or 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.120 scoffed at it. You know, it wasn't universally loved, but 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.440 a lot of people were into it. But the band 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.520 was doing something very unique. They were creating excitement, generating 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.839 excitement about jazz, drawing in all these different jazz influences 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.640 while also exploring new ground. Son Raw was a pioneer 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.320 in the use of electric music in jazz, and he 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:31.960 was also of course a founding pioneer in afrofuturism itself. 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.760 So he's bringing in space age concepts, sci fi concepts, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:42.680 esoteric concepts alongside Black egyptomania to generate his own personal 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:48.199 mythology and this unique take on afrofuturist philosophy. 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.480 Yeah, and a big part of This comes through in 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:52.360 the movie. It's one of the main themes of the 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:57.160 movie is something about a different form that black liberation 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:01.040 can take, So like black liberation being not just a 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:06.000 political project in this world, but kind, to some extent 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:10.040 expansion of consciousness and to some extent maybe a literal 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.840 transportation to a cosmic realm. 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.400 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, this is one of 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.000 those things that I think it's difficult to codify exactly 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.320 what his philosophy was. I would say to really understand it, 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:24.679 you need to listen to his music and hear him talk, 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.920 and you know, hear the lectures that he gave. My 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.720 perhaps limited understanding of it is that basically the idea 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:34.840 is that human beings can only achieve a kind of 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:39.840 freedom and liberation via creative inward journey, with space being 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.880 the source of life and the infinite expanse of inner creativity, 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.520 mythology and personal identity. Earth, on the other hand, is 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.560 a doomed world, and our individual lives are much too 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.120 short and each of us much too powerless to ever 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:59.040 enact meaningful outward change. But on an individual inward facing level, 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.480 we can all grow ask what he referred to as 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:05.720 the altered destiny. Yeah, so it does seem to be 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.079 a recurring theme that, like when he's talking about space 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.520 and going into outer space, it's also talking about going 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:13.320 inward into the creative world. 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.760 Yeah. That is an interesting point of interpretation where I 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.640 want to be careful not to go too far either 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:26.560 way to either over or underliteralize the extent to which 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:30.320 he's talking about really traveling into space, because to some 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.360 extent it seems like it's not just a metaphor for 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.800 like expansion of consciousness or transformation of the self into 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.920 a different kind of being. What I detect, you know, 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.840 and caveats for my own understanding, but what I detect 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.160 from the film and the stuff I've read is that 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.560 there is some amount of a metaphor at work there. 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.720 That it is about changing the self and turning inward 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.400 and expanding your own mind through creative expression and the 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.160 finding of inner piece and transformation. But there is also 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:06.679 some sort of externalization of this into ideas about transportation 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.840 into space and the creation of new types of science 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:15.160 and technology powered by this creative expression and by music. 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:19.840 Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely, Again, I think ultimately you have to 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:21.880 have to let Raw in his music and then this 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.960 film speak speak for itself. Yeah, I have a few 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.199 points here I want to cover from Sweed in that 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:33.400 biography that concerns specifically this film. He points out that, 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.680 you know, it originally originated as a as an attempt 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:38.800 to do some sort of a concert film at the 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:43.520 San Francisco Planetarium. He says that he does stress that 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.680 it would be a mistake to take the film too 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.480 literally as a reflection of Sunraw's ideas, but he does 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:51.640 point out, you know, Sunraw wrote his own lines, he 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:56.480 made suggestions during filming, but that it was ultimately collectively 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.920 written and considerably re edited. And he says, quote and 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.319 Son Raw, though he took directions well, kept leaving the 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:08.400 script behind or ignoring it. So you get the sense 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.240 from from various people involved that this was a film yeah, 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.040 that was kind of shot in in layers and then 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:19.240 reassembled and then reassembled again, and then there were thoughts 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:21.800 about you know, cutting stuff out, then the thoughts about 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.920 adding stuff back in. And it was apparently kind of 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.240 a frustration point for the director and the producers because 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.360 one of the things about Raw with his music is 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.040 like no piece was ever really completely finished. To a 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.199 certain extent, like you would always potentially play it again 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.160 and change something about it. You know. He had that 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.240 musician's approach to the content, whereas the filmmakers were like, 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:47.120 this needs to be done at some point, it has 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.360 to be finished so we can send it out. You know. 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.160 So there was you know, maybe you know, there were 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:57.959 differing philosophies on the creative process there. Yeah, but yeah. 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:03.640 Later on, raw Won wanted to cut the film down 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.480 to like sixty three minutes, and some of the cuts 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.079 that he wanted to take out, he wanted to take 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.560 out two sexual situations the pool hall scene that will 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.080 refer to in a bet. And he began to study 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.840 film himself and took to editing the film himself apparently, 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.560 but then increasingly thought, well everything should just be reshot. 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.360 We didn't get it the first time. He wanted to 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.920 be more beautiful, more spiritual, but then later on also 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.160 talked about, well maybe I want to put make sure 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.800 the street stuff, the pool hall scene, all this is 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.920 back in there for one reason or another. So the 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.760 movie here, it showed it. It showed just a couple 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:43.840 of times in San Francisco and New York when it 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.280 came out in What's seventy four, but then it largely vanished. 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:49.880 It kind of became not quite a lost film, but 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.960 very much an underground film for a while. And the 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.840 version that we watched the show, and the version that's 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.800 most commonly available out there, the eighty two minute cut, 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.920 this resurface, This came back out in two thousand and three, 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:05.760 and yeah, that's the version you're going to find in 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:06.560 most places. 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.360 Yeah, that's the version I saw. So that's the longer 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.120 version that has all the stuff in it. Yeah, but 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.960 some of the especially some of the earthly present scenes 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.640 where were cut out of Sunraw's initial edit. 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.800 Yeah, but then again it sounds like he had a 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:23.960 shorter edit. But it's not like he was like this 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.200 is my definitive cut, Like he kind of approached it 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.120 like perhaps like something that had not yet found its 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:31.800 ideal form. 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.320 Well, I mean, yeah, that strikes me. The classic artists 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.960 move like you keep changing your mind about what would 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:39.240 be the best form of something. 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.960 Yeah, yeah, totally understandable. So elevator pitch for this film, 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.880 I came up with a couple of them. The Harrowing 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.680 of Earth by sun Raw there, that's kind of what's 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.360 going on as well as The Day the Earth Stood 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:53.760 Still jazz version. 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.200 I think both of those work, yeah, because while it 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.320 is a tale of cosmic consciousness and liberation, and it 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.880 is also a tale of doom and salvation. 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.880 All Right, Well, at this point, you're like, I need 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:07.480 to duck out. I need to watch this film in 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.320 its entirety and then come back or rewatch it, whatever 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:12.400 the case may be, or just make sure that you 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.640 can watch it later. Well. Space Is the Place is 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.320 currently available to stream in the US on both HBO 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.520 Max and the Criterion Channel. You can also find it 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.800 on DVD and a Blu ray is available via a 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:29.040 three LP box set from Sundays Music. For my own part, 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:31.320 I watched it a couple of times for this episode, 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.600 once on HBO Max and then another time on the 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.720 PLEXIFILM DVD, which I rented from Atlanta's own Video Drum. 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:40.720 It has a couple of extras on there. I mentioned 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:46.280 that that sometimes sun ron Is Orchestra would play the 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:51.720 Place sequences of band members in front of ancient Egyptian ruins. 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.960 They include that as bonus content on there. You can 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.560 actually watch that footage, and there's also an interview with 0:16:57.640 --> 0:16:58.880 the producer and the director. 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.640 By the way, if you hear us saying Sunra's orchestra, 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.720 it is spelled like it sounds the way we're saying 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:07.520 it there, So if you're looking it up, it's a 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.840 r k arch estra. And I believe that some amount 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.679 of allusion to the idea of a biblical arc is 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:16.600 some is somewhat intentional. 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:21.359 I think so. Yeah. So Sunra's lingo is full of 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:25.359 various you know, unique takes on words, combinations of words 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:29.320 and terms. And as I'll mention again, he was a 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:35.240 voracious reader, read a lot of like esoteric content, alternative histories, 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:37.399 and also, especially earlier in his life, a lot of 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.400 like biblical material, so you know, it's very well acquainted 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.159 with with the Bible and interpretations of the Bible. And 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:49.280 then in his own reading, Yeah, this is this is fascinating. 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.800 Apparently he had, at least later in life, had his 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.200 own take on reading where he believed, or at least 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.320 he told people that the idea was that you had 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.440 all the knowledge that was in books already your head 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.320 and you were just unlocking them by reading books. And 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.439 therefore you could start reading a book at any point 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:07.880 and stop reading it at any point you're just kind 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:12.160 of like refreshing your brain with that content. And then 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.720 on top of that, he would tend to read like 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.040 any material as if it were like a careful analysis 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:23.520 of like biblical writings, and he would often hinge on 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:29.480 words that sound sounded similar, like orchestra orchestra, you know, 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:31.840 and combining things and so forth, so that there's a 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.800 lot of that in his in this film and just 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:37.000 in his language in general. 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.639 Yeah, I believe that there are also some kind of 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:46.040 Egyptian religious ideas Tupstra I think, you know, raw of course. 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.840 Yeah, yeah, but even things like altered destiny comes up, 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:52.960 which of course you get the sense of altered destiny, 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:55.560 but also an altar as in a like a place 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.200 where some sort of religious ritual takes place and so forth. 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:01.760 So they were more of that to discuss as we proceed. 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:04.439 But let's go ahead and get into the people behind 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.439 this film, starting with the director. It is John Coney, 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.240 who lived nineteen thirty five through twenty fifteen American director 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.840 who has the sole directorial credit on the film, and 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.480 outside of this film, Outside of Space is the Place, 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:25.159 he's also credited with directing Pink Floyd Kqed so kqed 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.280 IS was a San Francisco TV station and basically, you know, 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.760 around this time, late sixties, early seventies, I guess they 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.159 had a lot of access to and maybe sent up 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.760 kind of a mandate to film a lot of like 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.160 a lot of bands and a lot of musical acts, 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.119 including Pink Floyd. And so this was what Pink Floyd 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.760 kqed is slash was just a film studio performance with 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.399 I think some added like you know, light show, bells 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.679 and whistles. And of course this ties into the original 0:19:57.760 --> 0:19:59.600 plan for Space is the place that it would be 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.959 some sort of a just a film performance in a 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:07.400 cool setting, and that of course morphed into this narrative film. Yeah, 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.240 and it's also stressed that like different people were brought 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:13.640 in at different times to add elements that would be 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:18.639 eventually stitched together into this mostly cohesive narrative form that 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.399 includes writer Joshua Smith, who will get to in a moment, 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.840 cinematographer Seth Hill, who was I should note a writer 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.600 and director on in search of with Leonard Nimoy, and 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:33.600 then all of this gets edited together by editor Barbara Pocras, 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.240 whose credits include Knight of the Cobra Woman, The Giant 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:41.240 Spider Invasion, Fade to Black Chud two, and the Return 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:42.200 of a Living Debt. 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:44.160 Chud to Bud the Chud exactly. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:54.720 Yeah, oh boy. All right, so we've covered the director. 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.040 The producer on this was Jim Newman born nineteen thirty three. 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.199 This was the first of only three production credits that 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.000 he has from the seventies and eighties. Newman was himself 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:08.200 a jazz saxophonist and a multi instrumentalist who ultimately became 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.840 involved in a number of artistic interests, from music performance 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:16.480 to art gallery management. He will also worked with KQED 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:20.520 TV at the time on programs featuring a variety of musicians, 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:22.920 and it was roughly out of this work that the 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:27.480 idea emerged to do this Sunraw project. He went on 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.600 to co found the music festival organization and record label 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.199 Other Minds in I believe nineteen ninety one, and that 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.280 continues on to this day. The festival especially, I think 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:39.000 the next one is this October. 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.480 Oh cool. Do you know what kind of acts they get? 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.080 I was looking at it. I think it's a lot 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.720 of like jazz and jazz adjacent tie ACKs. But I 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.280 was not super familiar with it, so Bay Area music 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.960 fans and jazz enthusiasts write in and tell us about 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:58.240 it all right. The writer again, Joshua Smith, is the 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.520 credited writer, alongside Sonraw, who will get to in just 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.119 a second. Smith's only other writing credit was nineteen seventy 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:08.800 five Super Seal, a kid's movie about a seal that 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:11.520 is I guess super and its stars. One of the 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:14.240 stars is Sterling Holloway and it was directed by a 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:15.800 director by the name of Michael Duggan. 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.360 So this is about a super seal as in a pinniped. 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:21.000 It's not about a super seal. 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.320 Yeah, not like a navy seal, like a straight up 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:27.280 animal seal. And I think it's sometimes. It was also 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.400 released under the title Captain Nemo. For some reason, I. 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:32.240 Wasn't even thinking navy seal. I was thinking, like, it 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:33.600 couldn't be about a gasket. 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:37.080 It's not a gasket, it's not a soldier. It's just 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:38.000 a straight up seal. 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.600 Yeah, okay, but hey, we've been putting off. Okay, so 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.200 now we're going to get to the main, the main attraction. 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:46.639 What is this movie about. It's about Sun Raw. 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:50.439 That's right, and Sunraw depends This is a difficult Does 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:54.040 Sunraw play himself? Does he play a fictional version of Sounraw? 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:56.879 This is I guess this is kind of an opening question. 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.000 It depends on how you want to approach it. 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:01.280 This was one of my big questions about the movie too, 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:03.399 and this will come up again when we start talking 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:04.720 about parts of the plot. 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.960 Yeah. But he also again is credited as writer. He 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:11.840 at least wrote all of his own lines, and he 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:14.080 is the composer. All of the music you hear in 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:15.640 this film is Son Raw. 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:16.240 And his orchestra. 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:21.440 So Sounrah lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen ninety three, one 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.119 of the most enigmatic performers of the twentieth century, regardless 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:29.200 of genre, and a highly influential figure in avant garde jazz. 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:34.239 As Zwed discusses in his book, Raw gave multiple and 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:39.040 sometimes contradictory origin stories about himself and his early history 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:43.240 as a human being, while also denying being born, denying 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:47.159 being a human, and dismissing any previous names that he 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:51.240 had as mere pseudonyms. So again, this is not one 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:54.800 of those cases where he was professionally known as Son Raw. 0:23:57.240 --> 0:23:59.080 It seems to me like he was Son Raw I 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:01.000 mean that's the name he went by. People called him 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:04.400 son Raw or Sonny Raw or Sonny or Raw, and 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:07.960 it was either a persona that he deeply lived or 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:12.199 indeed simply who he was. Still we know he was 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:16.800 born Herman Sonny Blount in nineteen fourteen in Birmingham, Alabama, 0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:20.359 and that he quickly proved himself a quite gifted and 0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:23.280 unique individual. He was a voracious reader even at an 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:27.000 early age, a high achieving student, and something of a 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:30.040 musical prodigy. From a very early age he was reading 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:34.800 and composing sheet music, playing in adult bands, apparently coming 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:38.879 home from gigs with every last song memorized that they played. 0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:43.320 Just had an amazing aptitude for music. He attended Alabama 0:24:43.359 --> 0:24:48.000 Agricultural and Mechanical University, and he was considering further education 0:24:48.160 --> 0:24:52.240 in music, teaching, and even the church, while also just 0:24:52.320 --> 0:24:56.080 reading on a variety of topics, including commentaries and concordances 0:24:56.119 --> 0:24:59.520 for the Bible. And it was during this time, this 0:24:59.520 --> 0:25:01.520 would have been on nineteen thirty six when he was 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:04.719 I guess around twenty two, he had a visionary or 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:07.400 paranormal experience, or that those are the terms we would 0:25:07.480 --> 0:25:11.560 use for it today, in which he felt himself experienced 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:16.120 himself transported in energy form to the planet Saturn by 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:19.600 other worldly entities that had antennas over their eyes and 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:23.680 ears that told him to decease teaching training because there 0:25:23.760 --> 0:25:26.520 was going to be quote great trouble in schools and 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:29.199 that a time of chaos was coming and that he 0:25:29.240 --> 0:25:32.120 would need to speak and the people would listen to him. 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:36.199 And this vision also included, like it's detailed in the biography, 0:25:36.240 --> 0:25:39.600 like thousands of spaceships landing on Earth beneath a purple 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:40.760 and dark red sky. 0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:45.480 Wow, that's interesting. I had read about his experience of 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:49.560 being transported bodily to Saturn, but I hadn't read this 0:25:49.640 --> 0:25:54.240 detail about the spaceships descending on Earth beneath a purple 0:25:54.280 --> 0:25:58.080 and red sky, which maybe I'm taking the implications of 0:25:58.080 --> 0:25:59.879 that wrong with that sounds kind of ominous to me. 0:26:00.119 --> 0:26:04.840 And usually though a lot in the movie Space Is 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:08.680 The Place is about the future doom of Earth, the 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:12.000 doom of Earth does not seem to come from external 0:26:12.240 --> 0:26:16.960 cosmic sources. Really. It seems like that, you know, the 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:20.640 cosmos going outside beyond the Earth is like the good thing, 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:23.840 that's the salvation and the doom of the Earth is 0:26:23.880 --> 0:26:25.320 somehow intrinsic to it. 0:26:25.720 --> 0:26:27.880 Yeah, there's a bit in a Joyful Noise where he's 0:26:27.920 --> 0:26:31.159 giving a a lecture where he's talking about how, like 0:26:31.240 --> 0:26:34.159 all life everything comes from space, like space is the 0:26:34.200 --> 0:26:37.800 source of everything that is vital, but then Earth produces 0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:41.560 nothing but death. And I think his view is that, like, 0:26:41.840 --> 0:26:44.639 it's the people on Earth are out of line with 0:26:44.720 --> 0:26:48.560 the spirit and with their spiritual existence, and it's because 0:26:48.560 --> 0:26:51.679 of these problems on Earth that we are kind of 0:26:51.720 --> 0:26:55.439 like dooming ourselves. But this will be interesting to get 0:26:55.480 --> 0:26:58.880 into when we discuss the plot of the movie as well. Yeah, 0:26:59.119 --> 0:27:02.560 so I mentioned earlier that sun Raw would sometimes give 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:07.639 contradictory ideas about his past human life, but Zwed writes 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:11.399 that Sunraw, concerning the story of Saturn, quote told this 0:27:11.520 --> 0:27:18.200 story many times, unembarrassed, ingenuously and with remarkable consistency of detail. 0:27:19.280 --> 0:27:21.320 So you know, no matter how he would sort of 0:27:21.320 --> 0:27:23.919 play with other stories, he basically told the same story 0:27:23.960 --> 0:27:27.159 every time with this one. And he points out that 0:27:27.240 --> 0:27:31.200 while in retrospect we might compare this to UFO abduction tales, 0:27:31.640 --> 0:27:35.920 except with the aliens here being friendly, which isn't always 0:27:35.920 --> 0:27:39.080 the case with alien aduction narratives obviously, but more to 0:27:39.119 --> 0:27:41.720 the point, he points out this was many years before 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:45.000 the UFO abduction script really took off in the early 0:27:45.080 --> 0:27:48.480 nineteen fifties. Now, it is also worth pointing out that 0:27:48.520 --> 0:27:51.720 you can compare this story to various traditions of Christian 0:27:51.800 --> 0:27:56.000 conversion experiences as well, and of course, broadly, you know 0:27:56.040 --> 0:27:59.920 that is always the case. The paranormal experiences that involve UFO, 0:28:00.000 --> 0:28:03.720 those are just you know, very much adjacent to stories 0:28:03.720 --> 0:28:08.119 involving angels or spirits, these various visionary experiences people have 0:28:08.119 --> 0:28:11.160 had throughout time for a variety of reasons. We've talked 0:28:11.160 --> 0:28:13.040 about this on the show on Stuff to Will Your 0:28:13.080 --> 0:28:14.320 Mind multiple times before. 0:28:14.720 --> 0:28:17.560 Have we talked about how a lot of the UFO 0:28:17.720 --> 0:28:23.160 lore is just is coming full circle to spiritual phenomena beliefs? 0:28:23.680 --> 0:28:26.639 Oh yeah, that well, today, a lot of the people 0:28:26.720 --> 0:28:29.880 who you know, twenty years ago they were really big 0:28:29.920 --> 0:28:33.399 about UFO is like as aliens coming from space. Now 0:28:33.440 --> 0:28:36.520 a lot of them have concluded that actually aliens are 0:28:36.640 --> 0:28:40.320 angels or aliens are demons that like the same phenomena 0:28:40.360 --> 0:28:44.239 they believed in exist, but now they are convinced it 0:28:44.320 --> 0:28:45.600 is spiritual phenomena. 0:28:45.960 --> 0:28:49.680 Oh, Wow, yeah, I mean it, I really have to 0:28:49.760 --> 0:28:53.920 unpack what it says about us today as a civilization. 0:28:54.040 --> 0:28:57.320 But it makes sense because again we're dealing with the 0:28:58.080 --> 0:29:01.200 same meat with different dressing here, I think. Yeah, so 0:29:01.560 --> 0:29:04.440 I'm providing the brief version here concerning son Raw. But 0:29:04.560 --> 0:29:09.200 after this experience, the man who would become Sonny Raw 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:12.160 and finally Sun Raw began to devote himself to creating 0:29:12.240 --> 0:29:16.480 music with a tightly selected group of spiritually like minded musicians. 0:29:17.000 --> 0:29:20.240 What followed, most notably with the son Raw House in 0:29:20.280 --> 0:29:24.880 Philadelphia was something sometimes described as a house of perpetual rehearsal. 0:29:25.960 --> 0:29:31.120 So just playing music constantly, yeah, just through yeah, yeah yeah. 0:29:31.200 --> 0:29:33.480 And you know, if you're like me and you don't 0:29:33.480 --> 0:29:35.520 know a whole lot about jazz, you might you might 0:29:35.560 --> 0:29:38.800 hear orchestra music or see performance footage and think, well, 0:29:38.840 --> 0:29:41.040 this is is just kind of improvising. They're riffing, right, 0:29:41.920 --> 0:29:46.000 But the orchestra music was the result of meticulous rehearsal. 0:29:46.040 --> 0:29:48.680 That's one thing that all these different sources point out 0:29:48.760 --> 0:29:52.760 is that like they were just always rehearsing when they film. 0:29:52.840 --> 0:29:55.720 Space is the place, Like son Raw and his band 0:29:55.760 --> 0:29:57.600 showed up and they were just ready to go. They 0:29:57.640 --> 0:30:00.200 had everything, you know. You know, I don't know to 0:30:00.200 --> 0:30:02.840 what degree there is still playing around and riffing and 0:30:02.880 --> 0:30:05.400 so forth, but you know, it's still a lot of 0:30:05.440 --> 0:30:08.040 work goes into creating what you see on the screen 0:30:08.120 --> 0:30:11.520 and what you hear on these various audio releases. 0:30:11.960 --> 0:30:14.239 Well, I don't know to what extent the sun Raw 0:30:14.360 --> 0:30:18.040 Orchestra did involve improvisation. I mean, it looks to me 0:30:18.200 --> 0:30:21.800 like at least some things are maybe some improvised solos, 0:30:22.160 --> 0:30:25.280 maybe some of what Sunra himself is doing at least 0:30:25.280 --> 0:30:27.240 like him when he's spinning around and stuff that it 0:30:27.280 --> 0:30:29.360 seems like that would have to be somewhat improvised. But 0:30:30.640 --> 0:30:33.000 one thing that I think is definitely true is that 0:30:33.120 --> 0:30:37.040 it is hard to improvise effectively if you don't have 0:30:37.080 --> 0:30:40.960 a well rehearsed skeleton to base the improvisation of, you know, 0:30:41.000 --> 0:30:43.880 to have like a tight band that knows when the 0:30:43.960 --> 0:30:46.440 changes are coming, knows how long to vamp, and has 0:30:46.520 --> 0:30:49.280 a strong you know, has strong things going on in 0:30:49.320 --> 0:30:52.280 a structural and rehearsed way. That sort of creates the 0:30:52.360 --> 0:30:55.480 opportunity for a soloist to go on a big you know, 0:30:55.560 --> 0:30:59.880 improvised festooning of those those strong bones underneath. So rehear 0:31:00.320 --> 0:31:04.040 they're not mutually exclusive. Like you know, strong planning and 0:31:04.080 --> 0:31:07.960 rehearsal gives rise to the opportunity for good improvisation. 0:31:08.880 --> 0:31:11.760 That's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah, And 0:31:11.840 --> 0:31:14.880 so you know, you see, you hear people talk about, 0:31:14.880 --> 0:31:17.920 you read about the Sunra House, and you see footage 0:31:17.960 --> 0:31:20.640 of it. And basically this is a place where Sunrat 0:31:20.640 --> 0:31:24.120 had his instruments and his various books were already touched 0:31:24.160 --> 0:31:26.680 on some of the subjects he was into. And he 0:31:26.840 --> 0:31:30.200 lived there along with the current orchestra members, and there 0:31:30.200 --> 0:31:33.160 would also be a revolving assortment of guests as well. 0:31:33.760 --> 0:31:36.000 But you had kind of like a communal living space, 0:31:36.040 --> 0:31:40.680 almost like an asheram, except devoted to the pursuit of music. 0:31:40.840 --> 0:31:44.360 Under Sunra's leadership, he might give you a new name, 0:31:45.040 --> 0:31:47.520 or instruct you. Instruct you too for the first time 0:31:47.520 --> 0:31:50.880 in your life, carve an ancient Egyptian infinity lightning and 0:31:50.960 --> 0:31:53.840 thunder drum out of the stump of a tree that 0:31:53.920 --> 0:31:57.560 had been struck by lightning across the street. That's detailed 0:31:57.560 --> 0:32:00.960 and a joyful noise. And so like my musicians were 0:32:01.320 --> 0:32:03.120 drawn to him like it was a you know, they 0:32:03.160 --> 0:32:05.320 considered like an honor to be able to be there 0:32:05.720 --> 0:32:08.240 and partake of this, to sort of engage in the 0:32:08.720 --> 0:32:12.720 study of the deep cosmic background radiation of jazz wow. 0:32:13.000 --> 0:32:16.160 And so the orchestra toured the US, toured around the world, 0:32:16.600 --> 0:32:19.680 and when sun Raw passed in ninety three, leadership of 0:32:19.720 --> 0:32:22.600 the band at least by ninety five, I believe passed 0:32:22.600 --> 0:32:26.360 to orchestra member Marshall Allen, who is in this film, 0:32:27.040 --> 0:32:30.560 and Marshall and the band continues to tour and as 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:34.440 of this recording June ninth, twenty twenty six, Marshall Allen 0:32:34.560 --> 0:32:37.680 still leads the band and performs with them at the 0:32:37.720 --> 0:32:42.960 age of one hundred and two. WHOA, yeah, very impressed. 0:32:43.160 --> 0:32:48.320 That's awesome. Yeah, okay, Well, so we know that Sunraw's 0:32:48.480 --> 0:32:52.880 ideas are the core of the film's content. He's sort 0:32:52.880 --> 0:32:55.400 of the star of the film, sort of playing a 0:32:55.520 --> 0:32:59.040 character maybe, but also to a large extent, playing himself 0:32:59.120 --> 0:33:02.200 and representing. But there are also characters in the movie 0:33:02.200 --> 0:33:05.480 that are fully just fictional characters, right, and they might 0:33:05.520 --> 0:33:11.959 sort of represent ideas within Sunraw's philosophy or theology. But 0:33:12.000 --> 0:33:15.280 one of these major characters in the movie is called 0:33:15.480 --> 0:33:19.000 the Overseer sort of a primary villain, a kind of 0:33:19.320 --> 0:33:21.520 Satanic figure in a way, though I don't want to 0:33:22.040 --> 0:33:24.320 overseell that connection because I don't think you can just 0:33:24.360 --> 0:33:27.400 straightforwardly say he is the devil. That's too simple. 0:33:28.000 --> 0:33:32.120 Yeah, yeah, he's There are shades of Satan to him, 0:33:32.120 --> 0:33:36.680 for sure, But yeah, he is this clearly supernatural manipulator 0:33:36.800 --> 0:33:43.280 type character that is all about the manipulation and in 0:33:43.320 --> 0:33:44.719 the corruption of human beings. 0:33:44.800 --> 0:33:47.600 Yeah, and he likes people to meet their bad destiny. 0:33:47.640 --> 0:33:50.160 I've got more detail about that later on, But there's 0:33:50.160 --> 0:33:53.800 sort of different ideas about how sun Raw versus the 0:33:53.840 --> 0:33:57.080 Overseer influence people with respect to destiny, at least as 0:33:57.080 --> 0:33:58.640 far as I could tell from the storytelling. 0:33:58.960 --> 0:34:02.840 Yeah, yeah, and I should also exploitation is also a 0:34:03.000 --> 0:34:06.880 major theme of this character. So The Overseer is played 0:34:06.920 --> 0:34:09.720 by Raymond Johnson who lived nineteen thirty one through twenty 0:34:09.760 --> 0:34:14.400 twenty one. He's great in this role. He really really 0:34:14.440 --> 0:34:17.520 digs into it, has a nice evil laugh that he 0:34:17.560 --> 0:34:21.560 gets to belt out quite a lot. He previously appeared 0:34:21.640 --> 0:34:25.359 in an uncredited role in seventy one's Dirty Harry, and 0:34:25.440 --> 0:34:28.600 afterwards appeared as Ray Johnson in the seventy six Rudy 0:34:28.719 --> 0:34:31.880 Ray Moore Picture of the Human Tornado. His later credits 0:34:31.920 --> 0:34:35.560 include a nineteen eighty eight TV adaptation of The Bourne Identity, 0:34:36.320 --> 0:34:39.960 so he has a lot of screen time. He's pretty great. 0:34:40.920 --> 0:34:45.200 Another major character, and this is the first human character 0:34:45.280 --> 0:34:47.600 we're going to discuss here, because so far, like sun 0:34:47.719 --> 0:34:52.120 Raw is some sort of cosmic being, and then likewise 0:34:52.120 --> 0:34:56.279 the Overseer is some sort of non human being. But 0:34:56.320 --> 0:34:59.960 then the character Jimmy Fay is just a mortal man 0:35:00.120 --> 0:35:03.320 trying to make his way in the world in early 0:35:03.400 --> 0:35:07.760 nineteen seventies what Oakland, and he is played by Christopher Brooks. 0:35:08.400 --> 0:35:11.359 I couldn't find any dates on him or what his 0:35:11.400 --> 0:35:14.200 age is, but he's an actor whose other credits include 0:35:14.200 --> 0:35:19.520 seventy one's roseland seventy three's Alabama's Ghosts, seventy threes, Magnum Force, 0:35:20.320 --> 0:35:23.920 and seventy threes The God Monster of Indian Flats, as 0:35:23.920 --> 0:35:27.000 well as seventy six. Is almost a man all right. 0:35:27.360 --> 0:35:30.680 A few other characters, a few other actors of note here. 0:35:31.040 --> 0:35:33.640 A number of cast members in this were in nothing else. 0:35:34.480 --> 0:35:36.800 This was, for the most part, I think a scrappy, 0:35:36.840 --> 0:35:40.200 lower budget affair, and so there are various folks that 0:35:40.680 --> 0:35:42.920 just have this as their sole credit. But we have 0:35:42.960 --> 0:35:45.840 a character. This is another one of the mortal characters 0:35:45.840 --> 0:35:49.360 in the show. Character Bubbles is played by Jack Baker, 0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:53.440 who lived nineteen forty seven through nineteen ninety four. Mainstream 0:35:53.480 --> 0:35:56.799 American actor throughout the seventies, with appearances on such TV 0:35:56.840 --> 0:36:00.800 shows as Mission Impossible, Good Times, One Bug, and The 0:36:00.880 --> 0:36:03.840 Croft Super Show, as well as such films as seventy 0:36:03.840 --> 0:36:07.320 five's Friday Foster and seventy sevens The Kentucky Fried Movie. 0:36:07.920 --> 0:36:10.799 But by the eighties he pretty much completely transitioned over 0:36:10.800 --> 0:36:14.480 into the adult film industry, outside of a small role 0:36:14.680 --> 0:36:17.880 in nineteen ninety one's The Guyver, which we talked about 0:36:18.239 --> 0:36:20.720 the show, a science fiction film. 0:36:20.719 --> 0:36:23.120 That was one of some kind of like powered suit 0:36:23.280 --> 0:36:23.840 or mask. 0:36:24.160 --> 0:36:30.520 Yeah, biotechnology suit with screaming Mad George effects. That's right, yeah, yeah, 0:36:30.600 --> 0:36:33.360 some fun stuff. Mark Hamill is in that one. But 0:36:33.520 --> 0:36:37.080 at any rate, Baker, outside of that film just adult industry. 0:36:37.200 --> 0:36:39.760 After this point. He continued to work in that industry 0:36:39.760 --> 0:36:43.120 for the remainder of his career. Was nominated for awards 0:36:43.200 --> 0:36:47.680 in the adult industry and eventually transitioned into comedic, non 0:36:47.760 --> 0:36:53.120 sexual roles in the adult industry. And this is interesting 0:36:53.120 --> 0:36:55.480 as well because there's at least one more adult actor 0:36:55.480 --> 0:36:59.239 in the film. Johnny Keyes, who lived nineteen forty through 0:36:59.280 --> 0:37:02.839 twenty eighteen, is in this film. I'm not sure who 0:37:02.840 --> 0:37:04.279 he plays. It must be like a small part. I 0:37:04.320 --> 0:37:06.760 don't think he's credited, but he was in the Picture 0:37:07.200 --> 0:37:11.719 Behind the Green Door, pretty famous adult film of the 0:37:11.880 --> 0:37:15.000 of this time period that shot on the same sound 0:37:15.040 --> 0:37:20.080 stage as Space is the Place, oh, you know, using 0:37:20.120 --> 0:37:22.120 some of the some of the same space, so you know, 0:37:22.280 --> 0:37:24.479 I don't know if like one shooting days, one shooting nights, 0:37:24.520 --> 0:37:27.560 that sort of thing, but yeah, these were both coming 0:37:27.600 --> 0:37:32.440 together at the same time. Cool, all right? There There 0:37:32.520 --> 0:37:36.080 are other like secondary antagonists in the film, and they 0:37:36.080 --> 0:37:40.480 are NASA operatives. They are this will NASA assassins. 0:37:40.719 --> 0:37:43.279 One of the weirdest plot elements that I did not 0:37:43.360 --> 0:37:50.440 expect is this movie has absolutely wicked, racist, murderous NASA technicians. 0:37:50.640 --> 0:37:55.399 Yes, yes, and the main one, the nastiest of them, 0:37:55.520 --> 0:37:59.040 is Agent number one and he is played by Morgan Upton, 0:37:59.080 --> 0:38:03.160 who lived nineteen thirty through nineteen ninety one. Upton is 0:38:03.200 --> 0:38:06.440 best known as one of the four Stormtrooper voice actors 0:38:06.480 --> 0:38:09.040 working in nineteen seventy seven Star Wars. 0:38:09.200 --> 0:38:09.920 Oh wow. 0:38:10.080 --> 0:38:14.239 Yeah, so when you hear the original Star Wars any 0:38:14.239 --> 0:38:18.440 of that Stormtrooper chatter, Morgan Upton is in there somewhere. 0:38:19.440 --> 0:38:22.080 Must be another one of these drills. 0:38:22.680 --> 0:38:25.520 Yeah. His other credits include seventy two's The Candidate, seventy 0:38:25.560 --> 0:38:29.520 seven's Nightmare in Blood, seventy nine's More American Graffiti, eighty 0:38:29.560 --> 0:38:31.719 six is Peggy Sue Got Married, in eighty eight s 0:38:31.800 --> 0:38:35.719 Tucker the Man in His Dream, and then finally I'll 0:38:35.760 --> 0:38:40.080 just mention that we have Son Raw and his orchestra 0:38:40.200 --> 0:38:43.680 in this, so you will see a number of orchestra members. 0:38:43.719 --> 0:38:47.000 The credited members of the orchestra president are John Gilmore, 0:38:47.560 --> 0:38:55.120 Danny Davis, Larry Northington, Kawami Haddi, Ken Moshesh. June Tyson, 0:38:55.440 --> 0:38:59.040 she's the vocalist. You see her multiple times. She's great. 0:38:59.080 --> 0:39:03.160 I mean a lot of Sunrise music, like, she's pretty iconic. 0:39:03.440 --> 0:39:05.799 Can you hear someone singing? Space is the place? It's 0:39:05.880 --> 0:39:06.560 June Tyson. 0:39:06.760 --> 0:39:08.440 She's doing a lot of the doing a lot of 0:39:08.440 --> 0:39:09.000 the chanting. 0:39:09.400 --> 0:39:13.320 Yeah. Yeah, Marshall Allen, we already mentioned the current member 0:39:13.760 --> 0:39:16.799 of current leader band Leader of the Orchestra, you see 0:39:16.840 --> 0:39:22.440 him in this as well, elo Emoe, Danny Thompson, Lex Humphreys, 0:39:22.600 --> 0:39:25.600 and Tommy Hunter uh and of this group, I think 0:39:25.680 --> 0:39:28.400 Marshall Allen and Danny Davis are the only ones who 0:39:28.440 --> 0:39:30.600 are still part of the band. You know, several have 0:39:30.680 --> 0:39:33.880 passed on since this film was made, but again, the 0:39:33.960 --> 0:39:37.080 Orchestra is still out there touring by all means, go 0:39:37.080 --> 0:39:38.919 out and see them and listeners. If you have seen 0:39:38.960 --> 0:39:43.520 the Orchestra perform live at any point during its existence, 0:39:43.560 --> 0:39:44.759 write in and tell us about it. 0:39:45.000 --> 0:39:47.520 Have you been a member of the orchestra at any point? 0:39:47.600 --> 0:39:48.759 That would be impressive as well. 0:39:48.760 --> 0:39:51.680 Would please please write in Contact that stuff to blow 0:39:51.719 --> 0:40:02.960 your mind dot com. Okay, are you ready to talk 0:40:03.000 --> 0:40:05.319 about the plot to some extent at least? 0:40:05.719 --> 0:40:06.000 Yeah? 0:40:06.080 --> 0:40:08.919 I'm not going to do a chronological scene by scene 0:40:09.040 --> 0:40:11.719 narration of this movie, as we've said before. I think 0:40:11.760 --> 0:40:14.319 that works better for some of the like sillier like 0:40:14.360 --> 0:40:17.360 B movies we do. Instead here, I think we should 0:40:17.360 --> 0:40:21.000 talk about the opening couple of sequences in detail, because 0:40:21.040 --> 0:40:23.680 they established some of the themes and structure of the rest, 0:40:23.719 --> 0:40:26.920 and then we can move on to some general comments 0:40:26.960 --> 0:40:27.799 and observations. 0:40:28.160 --> 0:40:28.719 Yeah. 0:40:28.760 --> 0:40:31.520 Oh, and by the way, inserting this from later because 0:40:31.560 --> 0:40:33.600 I forgot to say it earlier. If you're not familiar 0:40:33.600 --> 0:40:36.479 with our show, we usually we will discuss like through 0:40:36.480 --> 0:40:39.160 the whole plot of the movie and including ending details. 0:40:39.160 --> 0:40:41.400 So if you want to have things not spoiled and 0:40:41.480 --> 0:40:44.120 see the movie, you know, going in fresh, you should 0:40:44.120 --> 0:40:47.560 stop here and go check it out. The movie opens 0:40:47.600 --> 0:40:51.520 in space, appropriately with stars hanging in the darkness. 0:40:51.719 --> 0:40:54.760 Most of the films we talk about started, it's. 0:40:54.640 --> 0:40:58.640 A very common opening. Yeah, so stars in space and 0:40:58.840 --> 0:41:03.400 these steady pulses of organ music, just a chord on 0:41:03.480 --> 0:41:08.040 the organ pulsing and then swelling and then fading, and 0:41:08.120 --> 0:41:11.840 then a spaceship enters the scene, gliding through the middle 0:41:11.840 --> 0:41:16.359 distance of the shot. This is the sun Raw Spaceship, Rob. 0:41:16.400 --> 0:41:19.000 I don't know if you found is there a name 0:41:19.320 --> 0:41:21.680 they give to this ship. If they mentioned it in 0:41:21.719 --> 0:41:23.400 the movie, it went past me. 0:41:23.920 --> 0:41:26.440 I don't think they refer to it as is anything 0:41:26.480 --> 0:41:28.680 other than sun Raw Spaceship. I often think of it 0:41:28.719 --> 0:41:32.400 as the arc, yeah, because it's kind of an arc, 0:41:32.480 --> 0:41:34.439 and you know, we think of the orchestra. But yeah, 0:41:34.560 --> 0:41:36.000 I think it's just the spaceship. 0:41:36.320 --> 0:41:39.600 It is sort of a yellow gold color of fire, 0:41:40.320 --> 0:41:44.400 shaped a bit like a dumbbell, with two spheres connected 0:41:44.400 --> 0:41:47.759 by a tube in the middle, but the two spheres 0:41:47.760 --> 0:41:50.320 on each side of the handle if it's a dumbbell, 0:41:50.719 --> 0:41:53.960 have tails that make themach look kind of like a tadpole. 0:41:54.640 --> 0:41:57.600 And then on the front of the two spheres there 0:41:57.640 --> 0:42:02.040 are these concentric circular designs that look like rings of 0:42:02.120 --> 0:42:06.800 green and orange flames surrounding central dots, which you could 0:42:06.800 --> 0:42:09.720 think of as the pupils of eyes or the nipples 0:42:09.719 --> 0:42:13.680 of breasts. So the spaceship is a very interesting image, 0:42:13.680 --> 0:42:17.279 and like how many different other images it suggests all 0:42:17.320 --> 0:42:20.799 at the same time. Clearly there is something of the 0:42:20.840 --> 0:42:25.439 sun and solar deities about it, light and fire, there's 0:42:25.480 --> 0:42:30.360 something of gold about it, organic imagery like breasts or eyes, 0:42:30.520 --> 0:42:35.280 and also gamat cells to some extent ancient Egyptian religious 0:42:35.280 --> 0:42:38.239 motifs are suggested by it, and I think not just 0:42:38.280 --> 0:42:40.920 by proximity to the costumes. There's something about like the 0:42:41.560 --> 0:42:45.759 concentric circles around the front that looks kind of Egyptian. 0:42:46.360 --> 0:42:50.240 There's also the concept of balance, with the two lobes 0:42:50.320 --> 0:42:55.279 balanced on a central bar. But also there are some 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:59.359 elements of more conventional science fiction spaceships, because later we're 0:42:59.360 --> 0:43:02.200 going to see the ship flying through the air shooting 0:43:02.640 --> 0:43:05.680 basically laser beams out of the eyes, though not as 0:43:05.719 --> 0:43:08.480 a weapon in any scene that I recall. I believe 0:43:08.480 --> 0:43:10.800 it's more for I don't know what. What do you 0:43:10.840 --> 0:43:11.879 think the beams are for? 0:43:12.320 --> 0:43:15.680 Oh, and it's a great question like is it scanning? 0:43:15.800 --> 0:43:18.719 Is it judging? We have this detail, we'll get to 0:43:18.760 --> 0:43:21.319 where we have the card of judgment. The Tarot Card 0:43:21.360 --> 0:43:23.680 of Judgment is held aloft by sun Raw and it 0:43:23.760 --> 0:43:26.880 shows the spaceship on there. I don't know that that 0:43:26.960 --> 0:43:29.160 gets into a question of like the doom that is 0:43:29.200 --> 0:43:32.240 coming to Earth, the death sentence that is on Earth. 0:43:33.160 --> 0:43:36.440 Is it like self generated or is there some degree 0:43:36.440 --> 0:43:39.719 of judgment that is taking place because sun Ra and 0:43:39.719 --> 0:43:41.000 his spaceship have come to Earth. 0:43:41.560 --> 0:43:47.160 It could be transmolecularization, yes, yes, it could very well be. Yeah. 0:43:47.680 --> 0:43:50.480 So we see the spaceship, it's like gliding through space 0:43:50.719 --> 0:43:54.399 and the voices voices start on the soundtrack. They ring 0:43:54.480 --> 0:43:57.439 out in this reverberating call in response, and what they're 0:43:57.480 --> 0:44:00.400 saying is it's after the end of the world. World, 0:44:00.680 --> 0:44:04.120 don't you know that yet? And this goes on repeating 0:44:04.160 --> 0:44:06.920 for some time, and then we start to hear the 0:44:06.960 --> 0:44:10.560 instruments of the orchestra come in, playing this free jazz 0:44:10.640 --> 0:44:15.760 crescendo with chaotic drums and the kind of scrambling high 0:44:15.760 --> 0:44:19.880 pitched trumpet. So if you've heard free jazz before, sometimes 0:44:19.880 --> 0:44:23.240 you'll hear a motif like this, like a horned instrument 0:44:23.760 --> 0:44:28.279 just playing this fast, skittering, very high pitched solo that 0:44:28.400 --> 0:44:29.800 it feels like it's just frantic. 0:44:30.640 --> 0:44:33.400 Yeah, I really love the music in this opening sequence. 0:44:33.480 --> 0:44:40.799 It feels like fittingly cosmic and dark and mysterious. Will 0:44:41.000 --> 0:44:43.719 One sort of side question here is like, some of 0:44:43.719 --> 0:44:46.520 you out there are very well acquainted with Sun Raw 0:44:46.560 --> 0:44:49.320 and his orchestra, and perhaps already have your favorite albums. 0:44:49.440 --> 0:44:51.399 Some of you might wonder, like, well, what's a good 0:44:51.400 --> 0:44:54.920 place to start with Sun Raw? It's easier now than 0:44:54.920 --> 0:44:57.720 ever before to go out and sample our new artists 0:44:57.719 --> 0:44:59.560 that you're interested in, or artists that are new to you. 0:45:01.200 --> 0:45:05.080 I ask a friend, my friend David Streepy, who's been 0:45:05.120 --> 0:45:07.759 on the show before, what his advice is because he's 0:45:07.800 --> 0:45:09.600 learned he's listened to a lot more son Raw than 0:45:09.600 --> 0:45:11.960 I have, and one that he suggested to me that 0:45:12.000 --> 0:45:15.440 I will pass on to listeners is Astro Black. You 0:45:15.440 --> 0:45:18.400 can find that one. It's like four or five tracks. 0:45:18.760 --> 0:45:21.080 You can find it wherever you stream your music, and 0:45:21.200 --> 0:45:24.439 it a lot of the music on that release has 0:45:24.520 --> 0:45:27.040 this kind of vibe to it, which I really appreciate. 0:45:27.480 --> 0:45:30.279 If I can also recommend one of his albums, I 0:45:30.360 --> 0:45:33.319 was not super familiar with Sunro's music before. I think 0:45:33.320 --> 0:45:35.400 I heard a little bit before, but none enough to 0:45:36.120 --> 0:45:38.560 have any real knowledge or expertise about it. But I 0:45:38.600 --> 0:45:42.560 started listening to some things before recording this episode, and 0:45:42.600 --> 0:45:46.080 if I can recommend one of his earlier ones, it's 0:45:46.560 --> 0:45:49.400 a little bit weird, but it has not gotten super 0:45:49.440 --> 0:45:52.920 weird yet. It's called Interstellar Low Ways. I think it's 0:45:52.920 --> 0:45:56.440 from the year nineteen sixty. I really enjoyed that one. Awesome. 0:45:56.520 --> 0:45:58.239 Yeah, I mean, it's good to have a place to 0:45:58.280 --> 0:46:00.919 start because he put out so much music, and I'm 0:46:00.920 --> 0:46:02.920 to understand there's a lot of music that he recorded 0:46:02.920 --> 0:46:05.960 that has never been released, like this was his this 0:46:06.120 --> 0:46:10.000 was his his compulsion, his passion, and yeah, so there's 0:46:10.040 --> 0:46:13.120 just a lot of music out there. And again he 0:46:13.320 --> 0:46:16.960 moved in different jazz waters. So I guess if you're 0:46:17.000 --> 0:46:18.719 into jazz at all, or you think you might be, 0:46:19.080 --> 0:46:22.400 there's a good chance something son raw recorded at some 0:46:22.520 --> 0:46:23.840 point is going to connect with you. 0:46:24.880 --> 0:46:28.080 Anyway. Coming back to this opening shot, I really like 0:46:28.239 --> 0:46:32.120 how there are dynamics, you might say, almost like musical 0:46:32.200 --> 0:46:37.359 dynamics at play in this opening. So the main thing 0:46:37.400 --> 0:46:40.320 I was thinking about is there's a warm cool dynamic, 0:46:40.440 --> 0:46:43.280 Like you get the warm musical tones of the organ 0:46:43.480 --> 0:46:45.920 when the organ is pulsing at the beginning, and you 0:46:45.960 --> 0:46:49.879 get the warm orange gold color of the spaceship, and 0:46:49.920 --> 0:46:53.040 then against that you have the cool or cold sounds 0:46:53.120 --> 0:46:56.600 created by like the reverb effect on the voices when 0:46:56.640 --> 0:46:59.520 the chant is going on, and the high pitched brass 0:46:59.560 --> 0:47:02.160 that feels like a cold sound, and then also the 0:47:02.200 --> 0:47:06.319 cold imagery of deep space. And I don't know, it 0:47:06.400 --> 0:47:08.640 feels like textually intentional to me. 0:47:09.200 --> 0:47:09.399 Yeah. 0:47:10.680 --> 0:47:14.680 So after this opening, we pan over an illustrated image 0:47:14.719 --> 0:47:19.080 of an otherworldly garden with diverse trees and flowers blooming 0:47:19.120 --> 0:47:21.720 on the side of a hill while some credits play, 0:47:21.920 --> 0:47:26.240 And then finally, while these strange jazz sounds are still playing, 0:47:27.280 --> 0:47:29.920 we come up on a live action shot in a 0:47:29.960 --> 0:47:33.320 forest with two figures in view, just two figures at first, 0:47:33.360 --> 0:47:37.440 we'll see more later. One figure is sun Raw himself, 0:47:37.600 --> 0:47:41.799 wearing his elaborate Egyptian garments with lots of gold, a 0:47:41.960 --> 0:47:46.000 feronic headdress complete with this great urb and nestled in 0:47:46.080 --> 0:47:49.280 a U shaped fork rising off the middle of his crown. 0:47:50.000 --> 0:47:52.640 I think this is imagery of the solar disk pointing 0:47:52.680 --> 0:47:57.000 to Auta or Raw. And then there's another figure alongside 0:47:57.440 --> 0:48:00.839 sun Raw here, which is a figure closed entirely in 0:48:00.920 --> 0:48:05.520 black robes with a black hood, so it's face its 0:48:05.560 --> 0:48:07.640 face would be the only thing visible, but the face 0:48:07.719 --> 0:48:10.240 is not visible because it is hidden behind a mask, 0:48:10.719 --> 0:48:13.920 and the mask is just a mirror, so no face, 0:48:14.120 --> 0:48:15.800 just a flat oval mirror. 0:48:16.480 --> 0:48:19.720 Yeah, and it's never really explained who these mirror faced 0:48:19.800 --> 0:48:24.279 entities are. I don't know, there acolytes of Sunrise and 0:48:24.320 --> 0:48:28.040 the cosmic Realm or something, but I have read that 0:48:28.520 --> 0:48:31.120 at some point in production this was supposed to be 0:48:31.239 --> 0:48:34.759 the Overseer, but then they ended up going in a 0:48:34.760 --> 0:48:37.920 different direction with how the Overseer would be represented in 0:48:37.920 --> 0:48:40.680 the film. But I love the mystery of it here 0:48:41.000 --> 0:48:44.840 and God, this whole opening sequence to spaces. The place 0:48:45.280 --> 0:48:47.960 is one of the most mesmerizing things I could think 0:48:47.960 --> 0:48:50.360 you could see. It's like the first like three and 0:48:50.400 --> 0:48:53.520 a half minutes essentially the film. I mean, I defy 0:48:53.640 --> 0:48:56.680 anyone to lose interest in the movie while watching this. 0:48:56.800 --> 0:49:00.360 It just really sucks you in. It's so surreal, another 0:49:00.400 --> 0:49:01.399 world lay out. 0:49:01.440 --> 0:49:05.680 It's wonderful, It's totally cool and so sunraw. He's walking 0:49:05.719 --> 0:49:09.480 here in this garden. He raises up his hand, and 0:49:09.719 --> 0:49:12.040 in his hand there is an object which he kind 0:49:12.040 --> 0:49:16.000 of releases into the air. I think it is supposed 0:49:16.040 --> 0:49:18.719 to be some kind of alien organism, but maybe it 0:49:18.760 --> 0:49:22.680 could be a kind of biotechnology. It looks like a 0:49:22.760 --> 0:49:26.799 cross between a jellyfish and a closed flower. So like 0:49:26.840 --> 0:49:30.960 a closed flower has a long green stem terminating at 0:49:30.960 --> 0:49:34.960 the top in this colorful pink and purple bulb, But 0:49:35.000 --> 0:49:38.560 then above the bulb there is a transparent dome like 0:49:38.640 --> 0:49:42.040 the bell of a jellyfish, and the stem structure kind 0:49:42.080 --> 0:49:44.880 of tapers off below the body and becomes flexible, like 0:49:44.960 --> 0:49:48.960 the trailing tentacles of a jellyfish. So it's this jellyfish flower. 0:49:49.719 --> 0:49:52.799 The jellyfish flower being floats away and then seems to 0:49:52.960 --> 0:49:57.600 travel beside Sunraw and his mirror faced companion hovering in 0:49:57.640 --> 0:49:59.919 the air, I think, maybe leading them through the four 0:50:00.400 --> 0:50:03.879 or maybe doing their bidding in the forest, and they 0:50:03.920 --> 0:50:08.560 wander through the trees, seeing plants, some plants that look 0:50:08.680 --> 0:50:13.239 like familiar earth plants, but also seeing alien flowers, some 0:50:13.320 --> 0:50:17.279 of which look like horns, like trumpets or trombones, and 0:50:17.320 --> 0:50:20.160 then also seeing alien fruits that kind of look like 0:50:20.239 --> 0:50:24.680 huge pink dragon fruits. And by the way, the music 0:50:24.760 --> 0:50:27.480 is still going, so the free form music of the 0:50:27.600 --> 0:50:31.920 orchestra is still playing in the background here. And then suddenly, 0:50:32.120 --> 0:50:35.160 underneath one of these pink fruits, we see a group 0:50:35.239 --> 0:50:39.880 of flowers or other fruits shaped like human hands growing 0:50:39.920 --> 0:50:42.719 from stems which are reaching up from below like they 0:50:42.760 --> 0:50:46.720 are either praising the fruit or maybe ready to catch 0:50:46.760 --> 0:50:50.799 the fruit when it falls. And then Sunraw sends his 0:50:50.880 --> 0:50:53.759 jellyfish flower ahead of him into a clearing, and then 0:50:53.760 --> 0:50:57.560 he stops wandering, and the camera focuses on him while 0:50:57.600 --> 0:51:01.560 he seems to be contemplating something. First, he starts to 0:51:01.840 --> 0:51:05.960 hum a tune, and you could think for a second, oh, 0:51:05.960 --> 0:51:08.879 he's humming a tune. He's just bored or passing the time. 0:51:08.920 --> 0:51:12.200 But then you realize he is assessing something about this place. 0:51:12.239 --> 0:51:17.200 He is judging its qualities in how it receives the tune. 0:51:17.239 --> 0:51:21.080 He hums, and he starts to speak. He says, the 0:51:21.200 --> 0:51:25.160 music is different here, the vibrations are different, not like 0:51:25.239 --> 0:51:29.759 Planet Earth. Planet Earth is the sound of guns, anger, frustration. 0:51:31.040 --> 0:51:34.719 And now we see Sunraw is facing the figure in 0:51:34.800 --> 0:51:37.279 the mirror mask and the hooded robes as if he 0:51:37.360 --> 0:51:39.360 is speaking to that figure. But if the face of 0:51:39.400 --> 0:51:41.759 a mirror is he speaking to himself? I don't know. 0:51:43.560 --> 0:51:46.320 Also in the background here we can see other people 0:51:46.400 --> 0:51:49.800 we haven't seen before. So there's a man standing aside 0:51:50.239 --> 0:51:54.120 wearing a headdress representing the Egyptian falcon headed god Horus, 0:51:54.800 --> 0:51:57.080 and he's back there. So we're getting more of a 0:51:57.120 --> 0:52:01.680 flavor of Sunraw's group people traveling with him, and their 0:52:02.000 --> 0:52:09.280 Egyptian cosmology reflected forms and shapes. Sunraw goes on talking. 0:52:09.840 --> 0:52:12.520 He says, there was no one to talk to on 0:52:12.640 --> 0:52:15.920 planet Earth who would understand. We set up a colony 0:52:15.960 --> 0:52:18.640 for black people here. See what they can do on 0:52:18.680 --> 0:52:21.479 a planet of their own without any white people there. 0:52:22.040 --> 0:52:24.360 They could drink in the beauty of this planet. It 0:52:24.360 --> 0:52:28.280 would affect their vibrations for the better, of course, another 0:52:28.400 --> 0:52:32.120 place in the universe, up under different stars, that would 0:52:32.160 --> 0:52:36.440 be where the altered destiny would come in. And during 0:52:36.480 --> 0:52:39.400 this monologue, the camera pulls back and we see that 0:52:39.480 --> 0:52:41.960 Sun Raw is not standing anymore. He's sitting on a 0:52:42.040 --> 0:52:45.480 rock in the middle of this forest clearing. And I 0:52:45.480 --> 0:52:48.160 want to note here we sort of alluded to this earlier, 0:52:48.239 --> 0:52:50.160 but I think this is a good place to talk 0:52:50.200 --> 0:52:53.279 about because we're hearing his monologue at this part in 0:52:53.320 --> 0:52:58.880 the movie that Sunraw does not project much emotion about 0:52:58.880 --> 0:53:02.480 this as he talked, though you can understand, like the 0:53:02.520 --> 0:53:06.920 things he says are very full of feeling, They express 0:53:07.040 --> 0:53:11.759 feelings about things. They're full of emotional verdicts and judgments 0:53:11.760 --> 0:53:14.560 about things, So you can understand his feelings about the 0:53:14.600 --> 0:53:18.360 subject matter from the words he says. But his physical 0:53:18.560 --> 0:53:24.760 bodily performance throughout the movie is almost studiously calm, quiet, flat, 0:53:24.920 --> 0:53:29.120 and unemotional. He has this air that is at once 0:53:29.320 --> 0:53:34.000 mystical and intellectual, but never animated, and never showing much 0:53:34.040 --> 0:53:37.920 emotion in his face, his body, or his tone of speaking. 0:53:38.800 --> 0:53:42.200 And I assumed at first that this was a deliberate 0:53:42.280 --> 0:53:44.880 choice made for the movie, maybe for the kind of 0:53:44.920 --> 0:53:47.120 the character version of himself that he's playing. 0:53:47.600 --> 0:53:48.719 But I don't know. 0:53:48.760 --> 0:53:50.959 Looking at some interviews and Rob, I think you said 0:53:50.960 --> 0:53:54.520 this that it seems he often presented himself that way 0:53:54.560 --> 0:53:57.680 in interviews as well, even outside the context of the film. 0:53:58.120 --> 0:54:00.400 So maybe it's just that's the way that he was 0:54:00.560 --> 0:54:03.280 or the way that he often presented himself in public. 0:54:03.840 --> 0:54:06.920 Yeah, I think I think that's likely the case. I 0:54:06.960 --> 0:54:10.439 would add another thing about the way he delivers these 0:54:10.719 --> 0:54:14.680 these monologues is that he's there's not a clear sense 0:54:14.719 --> 0:54:18.000 of affectation in his voice, like he is not trying 0:54:18.040 --> 0:54:21.640 to speak like a space Buddha or something, or like 0:54:21.719 --> 0:54:27.759 he sounds like against sounds very wise, knowledgeable, very charismatic, 0:54:28.480 --> 0:54:31.400 but also sounds very much like a guy who was 0:54:31.440 --> 0:54:34.480 born in Birmingham and lives in Philadelphia. You know, So 0:54:34.520 --> 0:54:37.440 there's a he's very relatable in that sense. 0:54:37.840 --> 0:54:41.279 Yeah, yeah, he's not. Again, it doesn't feel like he's 0:54:41.320 --> 0:54:43.759 putting on a character. I think that's why. You know, 0:54:43.800 --> 0:54:46.960 we were talking earlier about this sense that lines in 0:54:47.000 --> 0:54:49.719 the movie feel like they could be improvised from him. 0:54:49.760 --> 0:54:52.239 Of course they weren't improvised. He wrote them ahead of time, 0:54:52.680 --> 0:54:55.240 but I think what we're really tapping in there, tapping 0:54:55.239 --> 0:54:57.719 into there is not improvised as in made up on 0:54:57.800 --> 0:55:02.480 the spot, but improvised as in just flowing naturally from 0:55:02.560 --> 0:55:06.240 his real way of speaking, you know, not like lines 0:55:06.280 --> 0:55:10.720 written for another character. But anyway, So in this scene 0:55:10.840 --> 0:55:13.880 sun Ross start he sort of establishes the themes of 0:55:13.960 --> 0:55:17.760 the movie, the philosophical and spiritual themes of the movie. 0:55:18.400 --> 0:55:21.400 So one of the premises is that he wants to 0:55:21.440 --> 0:55:24.399 set up a colony in space, a colony on this 0:55:24.480 --> 0:55:28.720 beautiful other planet that can be a place for black people. 0:55:29.280 --> 0:55:33.000 He also talks about the premise that the Earth is doomed. 0:55:33.400 --> 0:55:36.960 In fact, it's so doomed that it's already after the 0:55:37.080 --> 0:55:39.640 end of the world. Like we heard in the chant 0:55:39.680 --> 0:55:43.239 at the beginning, there's a kind of there's a fatalism 0:55:43.280 --> 0:55:45.880 about that. It's not just like doom is coming or 0:55:45.920 --> 0:55:48.000 maybe coming, it's already happened in a sense. 0:55:48.640 --> 0:55:50.279 Yeah, And I think in that like this seems to 0:55:50.320 --> 0:55:55.840 tie into this idea like post colonial contact being a 0:55:55.920 --> 0:56:00.880 kind of like a post apocalyptic existence some senses. But 0:56:01.080 --> 0:56:05.680 at the same time, Sunrise very much will get into 0:56:05.880 --> 0:56:08.439 the way that he treats time there is the sense 0:56:08.520 --> 0:56:10.560 too that like it's after the end of the world, 0:56:10.640 --> 0:56:14.239 perhaps after time has since has has ceased to make 0:56:14.280 --> 0:56:16.040 any difference to us. 0:56:16.239 --> 0:56:19.840 Well, let's get to that. So he explains. He talks 0:56:19.880 --> 0:56:23.200 about how, in his view, the Earth in its present 0:56:23.280 --> 0:56:26.000 state is not a good place for black people. So 0:56:26.040 --> 0:56:28.120 he's going to set up a colony for black people 0:56:28.280 --> 0:56:31.040 on this beautiful garden planet and they can live out 0:56:31.040 --> 0:56:33.920 what he calls the altered Destiny. And that's again this 0:56:33.960 --> 0:56:37.279 theme that comes up many times in the movie. He 0:56:37.320 --> 0:56:41.319 starts to explain how people from Earth could be physically 0:56:41.440 --> 0:56:46.600 and spiritually transported to this new planet. He says, equation wise, 0:56:46.719 --> 0:56:49.919 the first thing to do is to consider time as 0:56:49.920 --> 0:56:54.320 officially ended. We work on the other side of time. 0:56:55.239 --> 0:56:59.360 It sort of suggests to me that time hasn't ended 0:56:59.400 --> 0:57:01.520 in the sense of the end of life. We think 0:57:01.560 --> 0:57:04.319 of the end of time as like the destruction of all, 0:57:05.760 --> 0:57:09.880 but that time has ended in some other since allowing 0:57:10.040 --> 0:57:13.640 the type of life idealized by Sun raw to go 0:57:13.680 --> 0:57:17.200 on without it. That there can be life without time 0:57:17.440 --> 0:57:18.880 on the other side of time. 0:57:19.840 --> 0:57:20.040 Yeah. 0:57:21.000 --> 0:57:24.680 Anyway, after this, he gets to a very important point again, 0:57:25.000 --> 0:57:27.600 like a core theme of the movie, which is the 0:57:27.680 --> 0:57:31.280 method of transportation. How are we going to get the 0:57:31.280 --> 0:57:35.000 people here to the planet, He says, we bring them 0:57:35.040 --> 0:57:41.040 here either through isotope teleportation, trans molecularization, or better still, 0:57:41.520 --> 0:57:45.360 teleport the whole planet here through music. And then we 0:57:45.400 --> 0:57:48.479 get the title on screen, space is the place as 0:57:48.520 --> 0:57:51.560 we see a human body. I think it might be sunrass, 0:57:53.280 --> 0:57:56.680 somebody's floating in space in the gold chain mail head 0:57:56.760 --> 0:58:00.760 dress with blue satin robes wrapped all around, or sometimes 0:58:00.760 --> 0:58:04.000 extended like wings like the wings of an angel, or 0:58:04.200 --> 0:58:08.320 maybe a bird like Egyptian god. But yeah, So the 0:58:08.400 --> 0:58:11.000 final thought here is this key theme of the movie 0:58:11.160 --> 0:58:16.479 that music can be a kind of spiritual and I think, 0:58:16.520 --> 0:58:21.680 in some sense literal transportation technology which has powers to 0:58:21.880 --> 0:58:25.400 take people body and soul through the cosmos to a 0:58:25.400 --> 0:58:30.040 different place, to a better planet which is not dominated 0:58:30.160 --> 0:58:34.000 and despoiled by the evil powers that rule this world. 0:58:34.920 --> 0:58:38.240 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, And other interviews I've hear him 0:58:38.240 --> 0:58:44.320 talk about music as indeed a universal spiritual language. 0:58:44.680 --> 0:58:45.680 Yeah. 0:58:45.720 --> 0:58:48.800 So again, just an amazing intro to this film. First 0:58:49.040 --> 0:58:53.440 what almost three and a half minutes, just absolutely mesmerizing, 0:58:53.520 --> 0:58:57.280 sucks you in, and then we transport in time and 0:58:57.400 --> 0:58:59.680 place to Chicago nineteen forty three. 0:59:00.080 --> 0:59:02.760 That's a strange transition. Yeah, you get a cipia toned 0:59:03.760 --> 0:59:06.520 still shot outside of a bar with an old timey car. 0:59:06.560 --> 0:59:18.960 There it says Chicago nineteen forty three. So yeah, we 0:59:19.040 --> 0:59:21.320 cut to this bar, and this is where we're going 0:59:21.400 --> 0:59:24.600 to meet some other major characters that appear throughout the film. 0:59:25.120 --> 0:59:28.560 So inside the bar is full of cigar smoke and 0:59:28.800 --> 0:59:32.080 hot piano music. We're hearing some bop, I guess or 0:59:32.120 --> 0:59:37.640 some swing and there are tables with red tablecloths, folks 0:59:37.680 --> 0:59:40.040 all dressed up for a nice night out on the town. 0:59:40.640 --> 0:59:43.919 We see young military servicemen in their uniforms. We see 0:59:43.920 --> 0:59:47.520 men and women in fancy dresses and tuxedos. And the 0:59:47.680 --> 0:59:51.040 entertainment here at the club is music and dance. So 0:59:51.080 --> 0:59:54.120 there's a group of sort of burlesque or cabaret dancers. 0:59:54.520 --> 0:59:58.360 And then on the piano is Sonny Ray, a sort 0:59:58.400 --> 1:00:03.560 of past earthly alter ego of Sun Raw. Not wearing 1:00:03.600 --> 1:00:07.440 his usual cosmic Egyptian clothing. Here he's dressed in a 1:00:07.600 --> 1:00:10.520 jacket with a very cool black and white chevron pattern. 1:00:10.640 --> 1:00:14.600 I like that jacket, but underneath he's got this black 1:00:14.640 --> 1:00:19.320 shirt with a cool necklace on and sunglasses and a 1:00:19.480 --> 1:00:22.080 knit cap. He's playing the piano and he is cooking. 1:00:22.240 --> 1:00:26.160 It's not the avant garde style of music. It's not 1:00:26.160 --> 1:00:29.200 that like climbing the mountains of Mars music we heard earlier. 1:00:30.160 --> 1:00:35.320 This is conventional, fast moving jazz piano. And I assume 1:00:35.400 --> 1:00:38.720 that this scene is somewhat a nod to Sunraw's own 1:00:38.880 --> 1:00:41.360 history of his own you know, like his own past 1:00:41.480 --> 1:00:45.360 playing more conventional jazz music and as a more conventional 1:00:45.480 --> 1:00:48.720 jazz band leader before his style started getting really weird 1:00:48.760 --> 1:00:50.080 and different in the sixties. 1:00:50.720 --> 1:00:52.560 I want to note this is one of those scenes 1:00:52.600 --> 1:00:54.800 where if you go back and rewatch the film, you 1:00:54.880 --> 1:00:58.040 begin to notice that various other characters from the movie 1:00:58.200 --> 1:01:01.720 Yes are present here, like the the two evil NASA guys. 1:01:02.280 --> 1:01:06.439 They're here for some reason, totally unacknowledged. The big guy 1:01:06.520 --> 1:01:09.280 Tiny from later in the film, he's here for some reason. 1:01:09.800 --> 1:01:12.040 So it is the past, and we have a past 1:01:12.160 --> 1:01:15.560 version of Sun Raw, but also there may be other 1:01:15.600 --> 1:01:18.000 mortal characters who are just here in a different incarnation. 1:01:18.080 --> 1:01:18.640 I'm not sure. 1:01:18.880 --> 1:01:22.640 Yeah, yeah, I don't know what that means. I don't know. Well, 1:01:22.760 --> 1:01:25.560 one thing I wonder is about where this scene originally 1:01:25.600 --> 1:01:27.840 came in the ordering of the film. 1:01:27.840 --> 1:01:30.120 Right right, yeah, again, it speaks to the way this 1:01:30.240 --> 1:01:32.200 film was kind of like found and it's edit. 1:01:33.200 --> 1:01:35.840 But anyway, in this scene we also meet one of 1:01:35.880 --> 1:01:40.240 the main villains of the movie, named the Overseer, who 1:01:40.320 --> 1:01:45.040 on one hand is represented as a wealthy and powerful 1:01:45.200 --> 1:01:50.320 pimp with expensive clothes and superficial charm though he can 1:01:50.600 --> 1:01:53.520 he's charming and suave, but he can also be quite 1:01:53.640 --> 1:01:57.960 vicious and cruel in some later scenes, and we're introduced 1:01:57.960 --> 1:02:00.800 to him through dialogue between a couple of waitresses at 1:02:00.880 --> 1:02:05.360 the bar. One explains to the other saying, that's the Overseer. 1:02:05.560 --> 1:02:08.240 He sees something he wants, he gets it. He'll be 1:02:08.280 --> 1:02:11.240 getting around to you soon. And that hints at the 1:02:11.240 --> 1:02:13.560 fact that often the something that he wants is not 1:02:13.640 --> 1:02:16.720 a thing, but a person, maybe even a person's soul, 1:02:17.400 --> 1:02:19.040 because on the other hand, so that's what he is. 1:02:19.080 --> 1:02:22.240 On one hand, he is a terrestrial kind of character, 1:02:22.320 --> 1:02:25.280 this rich pimp, But on the other hand, the Overseer 1:02:25.600 --> 1:02:30.800 is depicted as a figure of cosmic and spiritual evil 1:02:30.960 --> 1:02:35.800 with godlike powers. He is shown as a tempter and 1:02:36.040 --> 1:02:43.440 as a machiavellian manipulator, controlling and coercing people, coercing people's lives. So, 1:02:43.600 --> 1:02:47.080 in many ways, as we said earlier, a figure likes Satan, 1:02:47.200 --> 1:02:50.640 but I think also importantly different from Satan in some ways, 1:02:51.360 --> 1:02:54.160 I see a big part of his role as being 1:02:54.320 --> 1:02:58.880 an enforcer of fate or destiny. Did you also see 1:02:58.880 --> 1:03:02.400 this theme that like many of the human characters in 1:03:02.440 --> 1:03:05.480 the film are kind of on a set of rails. 1:03:05.640 --> 1:03:10.200 They are on this predetermined path of destiny where they 1:03:10.240 --> 1:03:15.120 are headed for confusion, unfreedom, and doom, and the overseer 1:03:15.240 --> 1:03:18.160 wants them to stay on those rails and keep them 1:03:18.200 --> 1:03:22.640 headed for this bad place, the place of bafflement and powerlessness. 1:03:23.000 --> 1:03:25.880 Yeah. Yeah, even as those characters at times like acknowledge 1:03:25.880 --> 1:03:27.440 like why am I on this path? Why am I 1:03:27.480 --> 1:03:27.960 doing this? 1:03:28.040 --> 1:03:33.360 Yeah? By contrast, Son Raw in his various forms, will 1:03:33.640 --> 1:03:38.200 appear to people and offer them another path, an altered destiny, 1:03:39.080 --> 1:03:43.320 in which they can expand their consciousness, liberate themselves in 1:03:43.360 --> 1:03:47.320 some important way, and wake up to the knowledge that 1:03:47.400 --> 1:03:50.240 there is a place for them in something great and 1:03:50.360 --> 1:03:53.280 wondrous if they will take it, a place in space. 1:03:53.880 --> 1:03:56.800 And it brings us back to this main metaphor here. 1:03:57.920 --> 1:04:01.400 But in this scene in the Bar Chicago, the overseer 1:04:01.560 --> 1:04:04.240 he arrives at the bar with a couple of women. 1:04:04.320 --> 1:04:06.600 There's like a woman on each of his arms. He's 1:04:06.680 --> 1:04:10.040 in sunglasses indoors, and he's got a pink flower on 1:04:10.120 --> 1:04:13.640 his lapel. His party is seated at a table near 1:04:13.680 --> 1:04:16.320 the front row, and he buys a cigar. He talks 1:04:16.360 --> 1:04:18.800 to the matre d and comments on the piano player, 1:04:19.320 --> 1:04:22.400 which again this is son Raw is Sonny Ray, And 1:04:22.560 --> 1:04:24.480 of course you know the matre d is very proud 1:04:24.520 --> 1:04:26.240 of their music there. You know, this is one of 1:04:26.280 --> 1:04:29.240 the best piano players he's ever heard. But the overseer says, no, 1:04:29.360 --> 1:04:31.800 I hate him. I want him off the stage. So 1:04:31.880 --> 1:04:36.440 he instantly recognizes that's his enemy. And the matre d 1:04:37.040 --> 1:04:39.880 goes up on stage and I don't know if he's 1:04:39.920 --> 1:04:41.640 the matre d he took. He's some kind of a 1:04:41.680 --> 1:04:44.400 central figure announcer. He goes up and takes the microphone 1:04:44.680 --> 1:04:47.920 and tries to move things along from the piano segment 1:04:48.040 --> 1:04:50.720 into the next act. So he announces, you know, the 1:04:50.760 --> 1:04:53.000 cabaret dancers are going to come out and perform. But 1:04:53.880 --> 1:04:57.480 here things get kind of funny. Sonny Ray is supposed 1:04:57.520 --> 1:05:01.840 to play the dancers on, but he refusing to shift 1:05:01.840 --> 1:05:05.160 into the dance music and is just vamping on the 1:05:05.200 --> 1:05:07.880 piano from the end of the song he was playing, 1:05:08.080 --> 1:05:13.200 and the vamping just gets weirder and weirder musically, and 1:05:13.320 --> 1:05:16.280 eventually he and people are getting very annoyed with him 1:05:16.320 --> 1:05:19.680 because of this. Eventually he does start picking up the 1:05:19.760 --> 1:05:23.400 tempo and the dancers start to come out, but while 1:05:23.480 --> 1:05:26.080 it sounds like the rhythm is right for the dancers 1:05:26.120 --> 1:05:29.840 to start, he's also playing all of these bizarre dissonant 1:05:29.920 --> 1:05:33.760 chords and scales on top of it, and it seems like, 1:05:34.800 --> 1:05:36.680 I don't know if you interpreted it the same way 1:05:36.720 --> 1:05:40.160 that I did, but it's like the weirdness of the 1:05:40.280 --> 1:05:44.280 music unleashes a kind of elemental force on the bar, 1:05:45.240 --> 1:05:48.520 and it's like the weirdness is a power of itself, 1:05:48.560 --> 1:05:51.920 and it starts blowing like wind starts blowing and kicking 1:05:51.960 --> 1:05:56.680 up clouds of dust and glass breaks everywhere, and people 1:05:56.720 --> 1:06:00.520 start screaming and running for the exits. And then the 1:06:00.560 --> 1:06:04.560 sounds of the real son Raw Orchestra come in on 1:06:04.600 --> 1:06:07.320 the soundtrack So Gone, or the sounds of the nineteen 1:06:07.400 --> 1:06:11.000 forty swing. Now we're hearing these high pitch scrambling horns 1:06:11.320 --> 1:06:13.040 and the avant garde space music. 1:06:14.160 --> 1:06:17.240 Yeah, a mighty wind is summoned by this. It's almost 1:06:17.280 --> 1:06:20.200 like this whole club was in an airlock, and now 1:06:20.240 --> 1:06:22.120 the air lock has been breached. 1:06:22.360 --> 1:06:26.360 Yes, So people are streaming down the staircases, tripping over 1:06:26.440 --> 1:06:29.280 each other to get out. There's a mirror ball hanging 1:06:29.280 --> 1:06:32.480 from the ceiling that falls down and crashes to the floor. 1:06:32.520 --> 1:06:34.160 I don't know if that has any significance. 1:06:35.040 --> 1:06:38.120 There's one of the burlesque dancers has a pasty blown 1:06:38.200 --> 1:06:39.040 right off the nipple. 1:06:39.200 --> 1:06:40.160 Oh, yeah, there you go. 1:06:40.440 --> 1:06:43.440 So there's a lot of humor in this sequence. 1:06:44.320 --> 1:06:49.520 So yeah, smoke, wind, flashes of colored lights, beings that 1:06:49.600 --> 1:06:53.000 seem like maybe they could be aliens appear briefly in silhouette, 1:06:53.040 --> 1:06:57.560 and the smoke, and eventually the piano itself rolls away 1:06:57.600 --> 1:07:00.480 from under Sunny Ray's hands, leaving Sunny Ras and the 1:07:00.560 --> 1:07:06.120 overseer sitting across from each other alone in silence. So 1:07:06.520 --> 1:07:10.200 I think by refusing to just play the dance music 1:07:10.680 --> 1:07:16.720 and insisting on his own strange and unpredictable musical explorations, 1:07:17.200 --> 1:07:21.920 Sonny Ray has somehow unleashed a storm of literal physical 1:07:22.040 --> 1:07:26.200 energy and transformation, and people are frightened and they run 1:07:26.240 --> 1:07:29.960 from the music, but it is altering reality all around them. 1:07:30.040 --> 1:07:32.120 I don't know if I was reading too much into that, 1:07:32.160 --> 1:07:35.680 but it feels significant about what it's supposed to mean 1:07:35.920 --> 1:07:37.080 for sun Ra's life. 1:07:37.480 --> 1:07:39.840 Yeah, yea, and I think that that seems fair. That 1:07:39.880 --> 1:07:43.000 lines up with with my viewing of the of the scene. 1:07:43.240 --> 1:07:45.600 But now we have just the sun son Raw and 1:07:45.600 --> 1:07:49.480 the overseer just contemplating each other, and this is where 1:07:49.480 --> 1:07:51.760 we're going to eventually get to a game of cards. 1:07:52.000 --> 1:07:55.080 That's right. So they're left alone, and the overseer says, 1:07:55.120 --> 1:07:58.040 you think you're ready for me? And Sonny Ray says, 1:07:58.160 --> 1:08:01.520 are you ready to alter your desk? That's a good reversal. 1:08:02.200 --> 1:08:05.400 The overseer explains that they're going to play a card game, 1:08:05.440 --> 1:08:08.640 and he starts listing games that his opponent can choose from. 1:08:08.640 --> 1:08:11.320 He's like, you want to play seven up whist and 1:08:11.440 --> 1:08:13.760 son Raw holds up a deck of cards and says, 1:08:14.040 --> 1:08:15.600 I say the end of the world. 1:08:16.080 --> 1:08:17.479 Yeah, and it's a Tarot deck. 1:08:17.800 --> 1:08:21.400 Okay, I didn't catch that at first, but yeah, it 1:08:21.400 --> 1:08:23.960 does have taro like imagery when we start seeing the 1:08:24.000 --> 1:08:28.800 cards and then they are suddenly teleported. They teleport out 1:08:28.800 --> 1:08:32.839 of the club to the middle of a vast desert plane, 1:08:33.120 --> 1:08:37.160 where Sun Raw now I think appearing. Would you say, 1:08:37.240 --> 1:08:40.519 at the moment of the teleportation, he's no longer Sunny Ray. 1:08:40.640 --> 1:08:44.280 He is now as his transcended self. Yeah, he is 1:08:44.360 --> 1:08:45.599 son Raw here, Yeah. 1:08:45.400 --> 1:08:46.559 Fully for sure. 1:08:46.720 --> 1:08:49.280 So now he is son Raw wearing his gold chain 1:08:49.360 --> 1:08:52.680 mesh head dress, and he's sitting across from the overseer 1:08:52.800 --> 1:08:56.360 at a red velvet topped game table with gold fringe 1:08:56.400 --> 1:08:59.160 and this diamond shaped hole in the middle of the table. 1:09:00.120 --> 1:09:03.880 Once again, the overseer asks Sun Raw to name the game, 1:09:04.560 --> 1:09:07.200 but he specifies that he will cut the deck, and 1:09:07.240 --> 1:09:09.080 this happens a few more times in the movie. The 1:09:09.080 --> 1:09:12.240 overseer always wants to cut the deck, which I think 1:09:12.360 --> 1:09:15.559 is supposed to imply he's cheating. Some of that means, Okay, 1:09:16.080 --> 1:09:16.519 I don't know. 1:09:16.479 --> 1:09:18.519 A lot about cards, but I would assume the see 1:09:18.520 --> 1:09:22.160 I cheats the cards. Yes, yes, So the overseer draws 1:09:22.320 --> 1:09:25.080 a couple of cards from this tarot like deck. First, 1:09:25.120 --> 1:09:28.719 he draws the World, showing a picture of the planet Earth. 1:09:28.880 --> 1:09:32.240 So to me, that signifies the connection of this planet 1:09:32.320 --> 1:09:34.040 with the overseer. 1:09:33.600 --> 1:09:38.240 The evil deity. It seems to go with Sunra's philosophy. 1:09:38.280 --> 1:09:41.679 And then also he draws a card labeled the Chariot 1:09:41.800 --> 1:09:45.760 and it shows a big nineteen seventies luxury sedan. And 1:09:45.800 --> 1:09:49.200 then he throws the cards into the diamond pit. And 1:09:49.400 --> 1:09:52.439 now it's sun Ra's turned to draw. He reaches into 1:09:52.439 --> 1:09:55.040 the deck, he draws a card and reveals it has 1:09:55.040 --> 1:09:58.080 a picture of his spaceship, the one with the two 1:09:58.160 --> 1:10:02.160 golden lobes and the flaming like eyes. And that card 1:10:02.280 --> 1:10:05.759 is labeled Judgment. It's pretty brutal. 1:10:06.240 --> 1:10:08.880 Yeah, And that's that's what does make me wonder. It's like, 1:10:08.920 --> 1:10:12.280 to what extent is son Raw here to judge? To 1:10:12.680 --> 1:10:16.280 what extent are the laser beams from his spaceship like 1:10:16.360 --> 1:10:18.040 beams of judgment and so forth. 1:10:19.120 --> 1:10:21.479 I mean, I don't think it is to the extent 1:10:21.520 --> 1:10:24.280 of the day the Earth stood still when it's actually like, 1:10:24.400 --> 1:10:27.320 you know, there is a weapon, but there is at 1:10:27.400 --> 1:10:31.599 least a sense of moral or spiritual judgment. I don't 1:10:31.600 --> 1:10:34.000 know if that extends to actual like punishment. 1:10:34.479 --> 1:10:34.519 No. 1:10:34.720 --> 1:10:38.120 Yeah, I've thought about this a bit, and I think 1:10:38.640 --> 1:10:41.920 I think it's pretty clear that the coming cataclysm is 1:10:42.560 --> 1:10:45.800 brought on by humanity. You know, it is because we 1:10:45.840 --> 1:10:47.760 are out of tune with ourselves, and we're out of 1:10:47.760 --> 1:10:49.719 tune with the music, and we don't have true music 1:10:49.760 --> 1:10:50.360 in our hearts. 1:10:50.520 --> 1:10:55.720 It is for those who do not accept the altered destiny. Yeah, 1:10:55.800 --> 1:10:58.360 so a lot of the rest of the movie is 1:10:58.360 --> 1:11:03.639 going to consist of scenes with other characters intercut back 1:11:03.680 --> 1:11:07.080 and forth with this game of cards played in the desert. 1:11:08.000 --> 1:11:12.440 So the game seems to be fought over the fates 1:11:12.520 --> 1:11:14.400 of the people of Earth. Did you take it the 1:11:14.439 --> 1:11:14.920 same way? 1:11:15.200 --> 1:11:15.720 Yeah? 1:11:15.800 --> 1:11:20.640 Yeah, But basically I would say every time something bad happens, 1:11:20.760 --> 1:11:24.240 like every time the humans live in confusion and move 1:11:24.360 --> 1:11:28.679 toward the doom destiny, the overseer counts a hand as 1:11:28.720 --> 1:11:32.200 his he like notches one for himself. And every time 1:11:32.280 --> 1:11:36.360 something weird or good happens and the people wake up 1:11:36.400 --> 1:11:40.400 to self liberation and space consciousness, Sunraw wins a hand, 1:11:40.479 --> 1:11:43.960 but Sun Raw he falls behind. He wins fewer hands 1:11:43.960 --> 1:11:45.599 than the overseer until the end. 1:11:46.000 --> 1:11:48.120 Yeah, you know, that's generally how you wanted to go 1:11:48.200 --> 1:11:51.320 in any kind of card game or a sporting event 1:11:51.360 --> 1:11:53.840 that takes place in a movie, you know, the person 1:11:53.840 --> 1:11:56.240 you're rooting for, and he's slowly come up from behind. 1:11:56.720 --> 1:11:59.120 Yeah. But before we go to any of these other scenes, 1:11:59.160 --> 1:12:03.200 we cut to some concert footage, the son Raw Orchestra concert. 1:12:04.120 --> 1:12:06.559 So it is we come in in the middle of 1:12:06.640 --> 1:12:12.880 this awesome percussion frenzy where we first see the percussionists playing, 1:12:13.240 --> 1:12:15.360 you know, like the people who have hand drums playing 1:12:15.400 --> 1:12:17.599 the hand drums. But then we pull back and I 1:12:17.640 --> 1:12:21.120 love this. We see and hear that everybody is playing 1:12:21.120 --> 1:12:24.040 some kind of percussion, so like the woodwind section of 1:12:24.120 --> 1:12:27.960 the orchestra, they have their woodwind instruments set aside, and 1:12:28.000 --> 1:12:30.280 they're drumming on bells and I think even on their 1:12:30.400 --> 1:12:34.240 music stands. And then finally the saxophones and the horns 1:12:34.280 --> 1:12:37.320 come in and the energy of the band is crazy. 1:12:37.400 --> 1:12:40.719 And so while the music keeps playing, we cut away 1:12:40.800 --> 1:12:45.360 to the interior set of the spaceship, which is this 1:12:46.160 --> 1:12:50.400 odd glowing amber space with walls that look like they 1:12:50.400 --> 1:12:53.960 are made of polished wood but also have that water 1:12:54.120 --> 1:12:57.720 dissolved Swiss cheese texture of karst you know what I mean, 1:12:58.040 --> 1:13:01.320 kind of karst rock. And then there is a clear 1:13:01.560 --> 1:13:05.080 glass door that you used to enter. I think this 1:13:05.200 --> 1:13:07.160 is the cockpit of the spaceship. This is where you 1:13:07.200 --> 1:13:11.120 pilot it. The clear glass door that opens by rotating 1:13:11.160 --> 1:13:13.200 and it lets one person through the door of the 1:13:13.240 --> 1:13:17.000 space ship at a time. Sunraw enters first, and he's 1:13:17.040 --> 1:13:19.400 going to go sit down at the pilot console on 1:13:19.439 --> 1:13:21.080 the ship. And what's there? Is it going to be 1:13:21.120 --> 1:13:25.000 a steering wheel? No, because what powers the ship? It's music. 1:13:25.400 --> 1:13:27.519 So he sits down to pilot the ship and it 1:13:27.600 --> 1:13:30.519 is a keyboard. This is the method of space travel 1:13:30.560 --> 1:13:32.200 technology powered by music. 1:13:32.400 --> 1:13:37.080 That's right, synth powered space travel, just like in Prometheus. 1:13:37.120 --> 1:13:40.920 By the way, wait what I don't know the engineers 1:13:40.920 --> 1:13:43.160 there in like little flutes and music and stuff. 1:13:43.520 --> 1:13:47.520 They power it with music. I forgot about that. Yeah, 1:13:47.560 --> 1:13:49.439 but yeah. So this goes on and then we see 1:13:49.560 --> 1:13:53.880 the space ship approaches the Earth. It comes toward the 1:13:54.320 --> 1:13:56.760 planet Earth, and then it comes down into our atmosphere 1:13:56.800 --> 1:13:59.519 and it flies over some cities. We see it flying 1:13:59.520 --> 1:14:02.120 over the mountainuntains in the neighborhoods. And this is the 1:14:02.160 --> 1:14:04.800 part where it's shooting like red laser beams out of 1:14:04.840 --> 1:14:07.439 the things that look like eyes or nipples. I don't 1:14:07.479 --> 1:14:09.880 know what that's it, because again I don't think we 1:14:09.920 --> 1:14:13.000 see the lasers hurting anybody, so I don't think they're. 1:14:12.880 --> 1:14:16.160 Part of the guidance system or something. Yeah, it looks 1:14:16.280 --> 1:14:18.439 very good too, I have to say, for what is 1:14:18.640 --> 1:14:21.599 by all accounts, you know, a lower budget affair here, 1:14:22.360 --> 1:14:25.559 and the effects here of the flying spaceship look really solid. 1:14:25.600 --> 1:14:26.080 I like it. 1:14:26.680 --> 1:14:29.720 So in the scene where the spaceship flies over the 1:14:29.720 --> 1:14:32.519 surface of the Earth, we meet the character Jimmy Fay 1:14:32.680 --> 1:14:36.320 as himself here. He is a TV presenter from Channel 1:14:36.360 --> 1:14:39.200 five in Oakland, California, which they say is an all 1:14:39.240 --> 1:14:42.559 black TV station, and he's on scene reporting on the 1:14:42.560 --> 1:14:46.640 fact that quote. As you probably know, several local mystics 1:14:46.680 --> 1:14:50.240 have predicted a landing from space this afternoon here at 1:14:50.240 --> 1:14:53.559 this spot opposite the Sector five government building, in the 1:14:53.600 --> 1:14:57.280 person of a black musician and thinker named Son Raw. 1:14:58.280 --> 1:15:02.360 So apparently the backstory is that Sun Raw disappeared while 1:15:02.400 --> 1:15:05.920 traveling in Europe on tour in nineteen sixty nine, and 1:15:05.960 --> 1:15:09.400 now several years later he returns to Earth in his 1:15:09.520 --> 1:15:14.240 glorious spaceship with his what they called his intergalactic myth 1:15:14.400 --> 1:15:20.479 science Solar Orchestra, and then Jimmy Fay says, upon landing here, 1:15:20.520 --> 1:15:23.080 he will reveal to the world his so called plan 1:15:23.240 --> 1:15:27.320 for the salvation of the Black Race. So the spaceship 1:15:27.360 --> 1:15:29.759 sets down in the middle of a field, and Jimmy 1:15:29.800 --> 1:15:33.080 Fay seems at first not to believe his own eyes. 1:15:33.840 --> 1:15:36.720 I don't know. I think maybe the implication is that 1:15:36.800 --> 1:15:40.919 he was initially reporting on this story like ironically, like Haha, 1:15:40.920 --> 1:15:43.360 what a joke you know this is? But then he 1:15:43.439 --> 1:15:48.600 sees the ship land and he's shaken. He's like, what's 1:15:48.680 --> 1:15:51.040 this going to mean? So he goes on reporting on it, 1:15:51.960 --> 1:15:54.280 and then along with the crowd, he runs up to 1:15:54.280 --> 1:15:56.680 the ship to greet Sun Raw and his crew as 1:15:56.680 --> 1:15:59.800 they come out of the spaceship. By the way, like 1:15:59.800 --> 1:16:05.360 the raw eyeball sirens are blasting the whole time. Yeah, 1:16:05.439 --> 1:16:08.519 And so Sun Raw disembarks with his retinue and they're 1:16:08.560 --> 1:16:11.760 all dressed in these gold and billowing capes. 1:16:12.160 --> 1:16:15.439 Wind machine blasting. This movie makes great use of wind. 1:16:15.240 --> 1:16:19.000 Machines awesome, and the costumes of Egyptian deities. You've got 1:16:19.040 --> 1:16:22.839 solar orbs, you have a Nubis and Horus all marching 1:16:22.880 --> 1:16:27.000 out with the band following playing music behind them. So 1:16:27.040 --> 1:16:31.200 it's like a marching jazz free jazz orchestra band coming 1:16:31.240 --> 1:16:34.400 out of the spaceship with these figures dressed like gods 1:16:34.439 --> 1:16:36.559 from ancient Egypt. It's just awesome. 1:16:37.479 --> 1:16:41.559 And Jimmy Fay is here to report. They bring out 1:16:41.600 --> 1:16:45.880 a like a crystal clear space helmet. Yeah, they present 1:16:45.920 --> 1:16:47.960 it to him, and I want to also mention that 1:16:47.960 --> 1:16:51.519 the guy bringing it out, he walks kind of like 1:16:51.600 --> 1:16:54.280 he's on the surface of the moon. This is apparently 1:16:54.320 --> 1:16:59.560 something that was a feature of some of the orchestra performances, 1:17:00.280 --> 1:17:03.320 walking like this. So he brings this out. Jimmy Fay 1:17:03.360 --> 1:17:05.639 puts it on, and I guess it allows Jimmy Fay 1:17:05.760 --> 1:17:09.800 to is it like an interpreter helmet, I don't know, 1:17:10.120 --> 1:17:13.639 somehow allows them to communicate directly with his brain. 1:17:13.920 --> 1:17:18.400 It's like a radio helmet to transmit sun Raw consciousness 1:17:18.400 --> 1:17:22.000 into Jimmy Fay's brain. I think, well, like he puts 1:17:22.000 --> 1:17:25.679 it on and then there's you know, keyboard madness going 1:17:25.720 --> 1:17:29.160 into his head and Sundraw is inside his head saying 1:17:29.320 --> 1:17:32.080 I am the altered Destiny, I am the living myth 1:17:33.400 --> 1:17:36.080 and so in this scene and then also it like 1:17:36.200 --> 1:17:40.400 triggers Jimmy Fay to ask questions about what's going on, 1:17:41.720 --> 1:17:44.479 or either he or somebody says, what is the power 1:17:44.479 --> 1:17:48.680 of your machine? And Sunraw's answer is music, and he 1:17:48.720 --> 1:17:51.439 goes on to say more. There's more monologuing in this scene. 1:17:52.439 --> 1:17:54.679 But I also love the way that the radio helmet 1:17:54.760 --> 1:17:57.680 is held up like like a chalice, like it is 1:17:57.720 --> 1:18:01.240 a the sacred cup of ice, you know, being held 1:18:01.280 --> 1:18:03.760 up like that, but it's receiving these signals either from 1:18:03.800 --> 1:18:18.880 space or from cosmic sun Sun Raw consciousness. Yeah, yeah, 1:18:18.880 --> 1:18:21.720 so I think maybe we'll stop there and because that 1:18:21.840 --> 1:18:25.200 that sort of like sets up the the main themes 1:18:25.240 --> 1:18:28.160 of the movie. But after this we're gonna have continued 1:18:28.200 --> 1:18:31.759 themes of Sun Raw in conflict with the overseer trying 1:18:31.800 --> 1:18:37.200 to break through and reach the people of Earth. A 1:18:37.200 --> 1:18:40.720 lot of the story is building toward a planned concert 1:18:40.880 --> 1:18:44.439 that Sunraw and his orchestra are going to play in 1:18:45.320 --> 1:18:47.160 at the end of the movie, I think at at 1:18:47.200 --> 1:18:49.599 an Oakland music venue. So a lot of the movie 1:18:49.640 --> 1:18:54.280 is set specifically in Oakland, California. But then there are 1:18:54.280 --> 1:18:58.160 these also these other scenes that intercut in between. There's 1:18:58.240 --> 1:19:01.320 one interesting scene that we probably talk about a bit 1:19:01.840 --> 1:19:05.320 of Sun Raw appearing to and preaching to the kids 1:19:05.320 --> 1:19:08.560 at the Oakland Youth Center. So they're just kid teenagers 1:19:08.600 --> 1:19:12.320 hanging out there and Sunraw appears to them and tries 1:19:12.360 --> 1:19:14.439 to sort of recruit them to his cause, or at 1:19:14.520 --> 1:19:17.240 least speak wisdom to them. I don't know if the 1:19:17.320 --> 1:19:20.920 recruiting is explicitly the goal, but he is appearing like 1:19:21.000 --> 1:19:25.320 a wandering preacher who is there to tell them truths 1:19:25.360 --> 1:19:27.680 that they are not ready to hear, and so we 1:19:27.800 --> 1:19:30.760 sort of met with skepticism, but he also breaks through 1:19:30.800 --> 1:19:33.479 a bit by speaking wisdom about their lives, about like 1:19:33.600 --> 1:19:37.800 racial inequality and injustice and about you know, things that 1:19:37.800 --> 1:19:40.760 people don't usually want to acknowledge about their lives. So 1:19:40.800 --> 1:19:43.760 he kind of wins some tentative converts from this appearance. 1:19:44.200 --> 1:19:46.800 Yeah, it's a great sequence in part because it's like 1:19:46.800 --> 1:19:50.519 it's very obviously a real community center and it has 1:19:50.800 --> 1:19:53.439 almost exclusively non actors in it. You know, it's like 1:19:53.560 --> 1:19:57.920 actual youth, actual children that are asking these questions. And 1:19:58.040 --> 1:20:00.200 for me, someone who grew up on watching se Me 1:20:00.280 --> 1:20:03.599 Street from the late seventies and early eighties, it has 1:20:03.720 --> 1:20:07.160 very much that kind of that kind of feel. You know, 1:20:07.400 --> 1:20:09.960 this this film is steeped in nineteen seventies and nos. 1:20:09.960 --> 1:20:12.920 So if you have any amount of nostalgia for that 1:20:13.040 --> 1:20:15.200 time period, you know it's going to connect with you. 1:20:15.280 --> 1:20:17.840 But yeah, sun Ross speaks to them, and I'm going 1:20:17.920 --> 1:20:19.559 to read some of what he says here. This is 1:20:19.560 --> 1:20:22.240 a bridge. But he says because they're asking him, like, 1:20:22.280 --> 1:20:24.240 are you real? What are these crazy shoes you're wearing? 1:20:24.280 --> 1:20:27.240 When does this outfit, you know, make fun of his shoes? Yea, yeah, 1:20:27.240 --> 1:20:30.200 they got those moon shoes. And he says, how do 1:20:30.240 --> 1:20:33.240 you know I'm real? I'm not real. I'm just like you. 1:20:33.840 --> 1:20:35.920 I do not come to you as a reality. I 1:20:36.000 --> 1:20:38.439 come to you as the myth. I came from a 1:20:38.520 --> 1:20:41.719 dream that the Black Man dreamed long ago. I'm actually 1:20:41.720 --> 1:20:46.040 a present sent to you by your ancestors. And he 1:20:46.479 --> 1:20:48.519 seems to win people over, you know, there were some 1:20:48.600 --> 1:20:51.400 doubters and people are like, yeah, yeah, I think I'm 1:20:51.479 --> 1:20:52.800 understanding what he's laying down. 1:20:53.320 --> 1:20:55.559 There will be a scene also later in the movie 1:20:55.640 --> 1:21:01.000 where some of the teenagers are wrestling with the accusation 1:21:01.120 --> 1:21:02.559 that Sounra sold out. 1:21:03.160 --> 1:21:06.720 Yeah plant by the overseer, you know very much. They're like, oh, 1:21:06.960 --> 1:21:08.760 he doesn't want to save you. He just wants to 1:21:08.760 --> 1:21:11.720 make money off of you. And so whether it's kind 1:21:11.760 --> 1:21:13.519 of clever how the film you know, plays with this 1:21:13.640 --> 1:21:16.919 idea of like you know, I mentioned how not everybody 1:21:17.040 --> 1:21:18.880 was like, oh, the Sunra guy is great, Like some 1:21:18.920 --> 1:21:20.880 people are like this is silly or this is you know, 1:21:20.920 --> 1:21:23.799 he's putting on a show for certain segments of the audience, 1:21:23.880 --> 1:21:25.960 and you know, this film is kind of acknowledging that 1:21:26.000 --> 1:21:29.040 to a certain extent. And also, you know, this is 1:21:29.120 --> 1:21:33.559 kind of anytime you have a you know, a preacher 1:21:33.640 --> 1:21:35.720 or a teacher or a bringer of wisdom, there are 1:21:35.760 --> 1:21:37.400 going to be those that doubt him. And how is 1:21:37.439 --> 1:21:39.400 he going to respond to those voices of doubt? 1:21:39.760 --> 1:21:43.000 Yeah. So another thing that Sunrah does in the middle 1:21:43.000 --> 1:21:45.120 of the movie is he sets up the Outer Space 1:21:45.200 --> 1:21:46.280 Employment Agency. 1:21:47.000 --> 1:21:50.080 Yeah yeah, I mean basically sets up an office for 1:21:50.439 --> 1:21:53.920 recruiting individuals to board the spaceship and leave for the 1:21:54.240 --> 1:21:55.320 other world colony. 1:21:55.640 --> 1:21:56.240 Yeah. 1:21:56.320 --> 1:21:59.920 And this is where we meet our NASA operatives. Who 1:22:00.320 --> 1:22:02.920 one of them though not Upton, but the other one 1:22:02.960 --> 1:22:05.080 I guess, like Agent number two comes. 1:22:05.240 --> 1:22:07.879 Here's the same guy who's later one of the killers. 1:22:08.040 --> 1:22:10.760 I think he is he or he looks a lot 1:22:10.880 --> 1:22:13.640 like Agent number two either way. But I love the 1:22:13.640 --> 1:22:15.600 scene where he's coming in and he's like, allow me 1:22:15.640 --> 1:22:19.639 to be blunt, mister Raw, and he's inquiring about about 1:22:19.720 --> 1:22:22.160 working for him, of course, so that he can steal 1:22:22.680 --> 1:22:26.040 sun Raw's secrets of space travel and deliver them to NASA. 1:22:26.360 --> 1:22:29.280 Yeah, so he tries to sign up, but the NASA 1:22:29.400 --> 1:22:35.160 scientist is he is very confused by what sun Raw 1:22:35.400 --> 1:22:39.200 explains about his vision for space travel, a sort of 1:22:39.320 --> 1:22:42.040 in that it's not going to be like a capitalist 1:22:42.160 --> 1:22:47.080 material conquest but a musical transformation of our nature. And 1:22:47.120 --> 1:22:52.599 the fact that there is no money, there's no pay Yeah, yeah. 1:22:52.080 --> 1:22:54.679 Yeah, there's a great really one of the great comedic 1:22:54.760 --> 1:22:59.240 scenes we see later the with the with the agency 1:22:59.360 --> 1:23:02.120 that he's set up. Here is where we have this 1:23:02.120 --> 1:23:05.200 this character, the street character that is a drunk. We 1:23:05.360 --> 1:23:08.679 see that he is, you know, constantly drinking and scheming 1:23:08.720 --> 1:23:11.240 how he's going to get his next bottle. He comes 1:23:11.280 --> 1:23:14.040 in inquiring about work, and uh. He and Raw have 1:23:14.080 --> 1:23:17.519 a great back and forth about like you know, ros 1:23:17.520 --> 1:23:21.040 talking about being something and nothing and and what has 1:23:21.040 --> 1:23:23.280 this guy been doing? We's been doing nothing. What can 1:23:23.400 --> 1:23:26.880 Raw pay him? Well? Also nothing? Uh, it's it's it's 1:23:27.280 --> 1:23:28.200 rather well put together. 1:23:28.720 --> 1:23:31.680 Let's see, in the middle of the movie, there are 1:23:31.720 --> 1:23:34.639 a lot of scenes of like the overseer just using 1:23:34.680 --> 1:23:39.719 and abusing people. Uh, he's portrayed as a pimp and 1:23:39.720 --> 1:23:42.200 and there. So there's like that leads into this very 1:23:42.200 --> 1:23:46.360 bizarre scene later where the two these two NASA employees 1:23:46.400 --> 1:23:49.880 who are like NASA technicians, but they're also like doing 1:23:50.320 --> 1:23:55.360 evil espionage trying to get son Raw's secretive space technology. 1:23:55.720 --> 1:23:59.080 They end up going to a brothel and then like 1:23:59.160 --> 1:24:03.080 becoming horrible racist and abusive and like beating up these 1:24:03.080 --> 1:24:05.720 two women who work there. 1:24:05.720 --> 1:24:08.519 The overseer has like pushed in their direction. 1:24:08.840 --> 1:24:12.400 Yes, totally. Yeah, so that was I don't know, it's 1:24:12.520 --> 1:24:16.240 like a bizarre tangent in the film, but like absolutely 1:24:16.320 --> 1:24:18.720 evil NASA technicians. And then after that they're like, well, 1:24:18.720 --> 1:24:21.799 we just got to kidnap son Raw. So that leads 1:24:21.880 --> 1:24:26.960 into the Sun Raw kidnapping plot where they they snatch him, 1:24:27.040 --> 1:24:30.240 put him in a van and kidnap him and tie 1:24:30.320 --> 1:24:32.280 him up, and they're going to try to force him 1:24:32.320 --> 1:24:35.480 to give up the secret of his space travel technology 1:24:35.960 --> 1:24:38.920 because they can't figure out how he does it. It's 1:24:39.000 --> 1:24:41.920 also like weird. They torture him by making him listen 1:24:41.920 --> 1:24:45.240 to marching band music. Well it's a marching band playing 1:24:45.280 --> 1:24:50.479 Dixie Yeah yeah, yeah, and so he So son Raw 1:24:50.680 --> 1:24:54.880 is trapped by these horrible NASA technicians, but then he 1:24:55.080 --> 1:24:57.760 is rescued by the young men who believe in him, 1:24:57.800 --> 1:25:00.240 so like they kind of find courage in themselves go 1:25:01.120 --> 1:25:03.479 they like recruit their friends and they go break into 1:25:03.520 --> 1:25:06.000 this facility and they get son Raw out and take 1:25:06.080 --> 1:25:08.120 him to so he makes it to the final concert. 1:25:08.200 --> 1:25:12.280 Yeah, it's like it's Bubbles Bernard, I think is the 1:25:12.280 --> 1:25:14.280 the other guy, and then there's Tiny the big guy. 1:25:14.520 --> 1:25:17.280 Yeah. 1:25:17.520 --> 1:25:20.439 The the NASA plot is dinner. I keep thinking about it, 1:25:20.960 --> 1:25:23.960 you know, the evil NASA operatives who are also ultimately 1:25:23.960 --> 1:25:26.559 going to be kidnappers and assassins. And I guess this 1:25:26.640 --> 1:25:28.759 is also one of those you can't think too literally about. 1:25:28.840 --> 1:25:32.799 But I was thinking this over and I guess it's 1:25:32.960 --> 1:25:35.800 less maybe the idea that NASA wants to steal Sunraw's 1:25:35.800 --> 1:25:38.639 space secrets. I mean it's that too, obviously, but it's 1:25:38.680 --> 1:25:42.360 also like an attempt by a dominator culture to reverse 1:25:42.400 --> 1:25:46.720 engineer some sort of artificial salvation for themselves based on 1:25:46.840 --> 1:25:52.040 the authentic salvation of a partnership culture to lean on 1:25:52.439 --> 1:25:56.400 terms from rain Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade, which 1:25:56.479 --> 1:25:58.960 to be clear, didn't come out till much later eighty seven. 1:25:59.360 --> 1:26:01.640 But in kind of like looking at these ideas, I 1:26:01.640 --> 1:26:05.439 realized there's actually, apparently there's a jazz artist, but an 1:26:05.479 --> 1:26:09.200 him of Nicole Mitchell, who has done some afrofuturist work 1:26:09.360 --> 1:26:12.479 that directly plays with some of these concepts from The 1:26:12.560 --> 1:26:15.160 Chalice and the Play. So sorry tangent there, but I 1:26:15.200 --> 1:26:16.720 was like, oh, that's that's neat. 1:26:16.720 --> 1:26:18.840 How that comes to get well, yeah, I mean, I 1:26:18.840 --> 1:26:22.880 think it's the way it's portrayed is that these two 1:26:22.960 --> 1:26:28.080 NASA technicians represent a just sort of predatory white power 1:26:28.160 --> 1:26:32.800 structure that is sort of like beyond hope of achieving 1:26:32.880 --> 1:26:36.519 like a greater higher consciousness of cooperation or anything like that. 1:26:36.560 --> 1:26:41.320 They're just trying to steal and pillage and dominate. 1:26:40.920 --> 1:26:45.320 And and they're completely incapable of understanding what sunraw Is 1:26:45.320 --> 1:26:49.000 is even doing or offering. Like they're completely you know, 1:26:49.360 --> 1:26:51.720 when they're presented with it, they're like, I don't understand it. Well, 1:26:51.720 --> 1:26:53.559 I guess we've got to kidnap him. In torture him, 1:26:53.800 --> 1:26:55.679 and then when that doesn't work, they're like, I guess 1:26:55.680 --> 1:26:58.040 we need to kill him. We have to assassinate him. 1:26:58.120 --> 1:27:00.240 So I guess here we're coming to describing the end 1:27:00.240 --> 1:27:03.040 of the film, which does involve a big concert, and 1:27:03.080 --> 1:27:05.879 we get to see a lot of the musical performance itself, 1:27:05.920 --> 1:27:10.080 of Sunraw and the orchestra putting together this great and 1:27:10.120 --> 1:27:14.519 beautiful noise here at the concert. But the concert also 1:27:14.640 --> 1:27:18.519 does have an assassination plot. So the NASA technicians break 1:27:18.560 --> 1:27:22.680 in and they end up trying to They put their 1:27:22.680 --> 1:27:26.240 guns on Sunraw, they take aim at him, but intervention 1:27:26.400 --> 1:27:30.840 comes in the form of Sunraw's young disciples, like the 1:27:30.880 --> 1:27:33.320 young men he's been sort of reaching out to throughout 1:27:33.320 --> 1:27:36.400 the film. They get in between the bullet and Son Raw. 1:27:36.880 --> 1:27:40.960 But then we get some like back to life rejuvenation, 1:27:41.160 --> 1:27:45.200 bringing back to life through the magical power, magical technology, 1:27:45.320 --> 1:27:47.599 technology science, myth power of music. 1:27:47.880 --> 1:27:49.920 That's right. Bubbles, I believe, is the one that takes 1:27:49.920 --> 1:27:51.720 a bullet for Sun Raw jumps in front of the 1:27:51.720 --> 1:27:54.559 bullet and it seems like, oh, he's dead, but then 1:27:54.640 --> 1:27:57.200 Sunraw reaches out a hand, yeah. 1:27:56.840 --> 1:27:59.720 And so he's resurrected in the spaceship. So they all 1:27:59.720 --> 1:28:03.080 get to go to their place in space. They appear 1:28:03.120 --> 1:28:06.400 in the spaceship and they move through the pivoting glass door, 1:28:06.439 --> 1:28:09.080 remember the glass door that rotates to let you into 1:28:09.439 --> 1:28:12.639 the sort of wood kars amber room at the heart 1:28:12.680 --> 1:28:15.800 of the spaceship. And so they come in, and then 1:28:16.120 --> 1:28:20.120 through this musical performance, there is also kind of just 1:28:20.200 --> 1:28:24.040 a rapturing, a general rapturing of people from all over 1:28:24.520 --> 1:28:29.000 who are transported to or within the spaceship. There's also 1:28:29.080 --> 1:28:31.679 a discussion at the spaceship at the end about who 1:28:31.720 --> 1:28:34.519 can come in and who can't, or what part of 1:28:34.560 --> 1:28:38.840 somebody might have to be left behind. And so yeah, 1:28:39.000 --> 1:28:41.479 there's this whole discussion of like who is actually going 1:28:41.520 --> 1:28:44.680 to space, and so some many people are taken away 1:28:44.720 --> 1:28:48.080 with sun Raw into space. And then as we actually 1:28:48.080 --> 1:28:50.559 do get to see the spaceship leave into space at 1:28:50.560 --> 1:28:53.960 the end, and then the Earth just explodes. It's like 1:28:54.000 --> 1:28:56.360 a piece of fruit with a firecracker in it. 1:28:56.360 --> 1:28:58.800 It harkens back to something that Ross says earlier in 1:28:58.800 --> 1:29:01.360 the picture when he's in a car being driven around 1:29:01.400 --> 1:29:04.519 and they have some of his attendants with him. He says, 1:29:04.720 --> 1:29:07.240 if the planet takes hold of an altered destiny. There's 1:29:07.280 --> 1:29:10.320 hope for everyone, but otherwise, the death sentence upon this 1:29:10.360 --> 1:29:14.519 planet still stands. Everyone must die, and here we see 1:29:14.560 --> 1:29:17.639 that happen as he leaves planet Earth. With those who 1:29:18.240 --> 1:29:21.559 listen to his message and embraced the music and were 1:29:21.600 --> 1:29:24.680 brought aboard this cosmic arc, they get to pass on 1:29:24.800 --> 1:29:28.040 to the next world. The rest of the world explodes 1:29:28.560 --> 1:29:35.280 and the perishes and darkness. Yeah so quite I mean again, 1:29:35.400 --> 1:29:40.040 think of this as essentially a concert film. Pretty ballsy 1:29:40.120 --> 1:29:43.360 for your your your concert film to end with the 1:29:43.400 --> 1:29:48.160 destruction of Earth. The entire planet is destroyed. But it 1:29:48.960 --> 1:29:50.880 you know, but but it's not just like gloom and 1:29:50.920 --> 1:29:53.519 doom like it's you know, it's also it is about 1:29:53.520 --> 1:29:56.920 salvation through the music and and then the power of music, 1:29:57.000 --> 1:29:59.200 and we see that in play as well. 1:29:59.360 --> 1:30:01.280 Oh it's a old choice. It is one of the 1:30:01.720 --> 1:30:06.040 most joyful and interesting explosions of planet Earth I've ever seen. 1:30:06.280 --> 1:30:09.720 Yeah, yeah, and it looks pretty good. Pretty again, I 1:30:11.320 --> 1:30:13.360 especially given the budget that they had to work with, 1:30:13.520 --> 1:30:17.639 a lot of talented people made it work. They really 1:30:17.680 --> 1:30:20.439 stretched those dollars and made the effects worthwhile. 1:30:20.479 --> 1:30:20.679 Here. 1:30:20.960 --> 1:30:22.840 One of the last things we do see in the 1:30:22.880 --> 1:30:26.519 movie is just this fragment of the former sphere of 1:30:26.560 --> 1:30:27.719 Earth spinning in space. 1:30:28.240 --> 1:30:30.880 Yeah. Yeah, and then that's the end. We don't get 1:30:30.880 --> 1:30:33.400 to see these characters, of all the characters that were 1:30:33.479 --> 1:30:35.240 raptured by Sun Raw, we don't get to see them 1:30:35.520 --> 1:30:38.719 on the off world colony, in this new world or anything. 1:30:38.760 --> 1:30:41.840 But you know, we have the idea that now life 1:30:41.880 --> 1:30:44.680 is going to be better for everyone who took this 1:30:44.800 --> 1:30:45.599 message to heart. 1:30:46.040 --> 1:30:50.040 In the moods where Son Raw wishes the movie had 1:30:50.120 --> 1:30:54.040 just had had more beautiful things in it, I wonder 1:30:54.120 --> 1:30:56.000 if that's what he had in mind, if you wanted 1:30:56.040 --> 1:30:58.559 to focus more on the other side of time, if 1:30:58.560 --> 1:31:01.719 you wanted to focus more on seeing that other life. 1:31:02.080 --> 1:31:06.160 Possibly, so yeah, yeah, you know, yeah. I wonder how 1:31:06.240 --> 1:31:08.439 much of it was it was even necessarily plot based, 1:31:08.439 --> 1:31:11.759 but more about like just visual expression of the ideas. 1:31:11.840 --> 1:31:14.760 I'm not sure, but you know, that's that's a version 1:31:14.760 --> 1:31:16.599 of the film we never got. This is the this 1:31:16.640 --> 1:31:20.880 is the version we have, and it's it's it's pretty remarkable. 1:31:21.080 --> 1:31:23.000 One of the things that I read in Space is 1:31:23.040 --> 1:31:25.280 the Place the Life and Times of Sun Raw by 1:31:25.360 --> 1:31:28.880 John Sweed, is that at the time when this movie 1:31:28.920 --> 1:31:32.000 came out it was pretty weird, like like it was 1:31:32.040 --> 1:31:35.160 a weird film in seventy four, but you know, it's 1:31:35.240 --> 1:31:38.719 just it's it's it's become weirder in a way because 1:31:38.760 --> 1:31:41.439 of all the nineteen seventy miss about it, you know, 1:31:41.479 --> 1:31:45.479 all this nostalgia, you know, another time, and it's no 1:31:45.560 --> 1:31:49.320 longer the contemporary world in some respects. Though at the 1:31:49.360 --> 1:31:51.439 same time, obviously a lot of the messages of the 1:31:51.479 --> 1:31:55.960 film still resonate today. It is. Yeah, it is just 1:31:56.000 --> 1:32:00.920 such a resonant film. It just it some real staying 1:32:00.960 --> 1:32:05.719 power and it's absolutely a joy to check out, totally. Yes, Yeah, 1:32:05.760 --> 1:32:08.479 And you know, to whatever extent it draws people into 1:32:08.479 --> 1:32:12.080 the music of Sun Raw, Yeah, I think that's tremendous 1:32:12.120 --> 1:32:15.360 as well. Certainly, I think this was the main way 1:32:15.439 --> 1:32:18.920 I learned about Sunrise. I knew, you know, I'm interested 1:32:19.080 --> 1:32:22.160 in I've always been interested in in the nineteen seventies 1:32:22.200 --> 1:32:25.519 and nineteen seventies cinema and then to a certain degree, 1:32:25.600 --> 1:32:28.639 you know, space music. So this, this drew me in 1:32:28.880 --> 1:32:31.960 and has led me to explore some more of Sunraw's 1:32:32.040 --> 1:32:35.320 music outside of this, and again he's been highly influential. 1:32:35.360 --> 1:32:38.599 There are any number of people who list Sunraw as 1:32:38.640 --> 1:32:41.920 a primary influence as someone who really got them interested 1:32:41.960 --> 1:32:47.519 in music in general and specifically different forms of jazz. Yeah, 1:32:47.560 --> 1:32:50.560 all right, that space is the place. We're going to 1:32:50.560 --> 1:32:52.559 go ahead and close the episode out here, but we'd 1:32:52.560 --> 1:32:53.960 love to hear from everyone out there if you have 1:32:54.040 --> 1:32:56.439 thoughts on Space is the place you have thoughts on 1:32:56.520 --> 1:32:59.720 the music and the enigma of sun Raw right in, 1:33:00.080 --> 1:33:03.480 we would love to hear from you. Just a reminder 1:33:03.520 --> 1:33:05.880 that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science 1:33:05.880 --> 1:33:08.600 and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 1:33:08.920 --> 1:33:11.320 On Wednesdays we do a short form episode, and on 1:33:11.400 --> 1:33:14.160 Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk 1:33:14.200 --> 1:33:17.040 about a weird film on weird House Cinema. If you 1:33:17.080 --> 1:33:19.800 are on letterbox dot com, check us out there. Our 1:33:19.880 --> 1:33:21.720 username is weird Ouse. We have a nice list of 1:33:21.760 --> 1:33:23.639 all the films we've covered over the years, and sometimes 1:33:23.640 --> 1:33:27.080 a peek ahead of what comes next. 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